Checkley is a village and civil parish in the district of Staffordshire Moorlands in the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands Cou ...

.OS Explorer Map 259: Derby, Ashbourne and Cheadle: (1:25 000) :Map 259 Details
retrieved 24 April 2013

Location

The village is located in the valley of the

River Tean The River Tean is a small river whose course is entirely within the English county of Staffordshire.OS Explorer Map 259: ''Derby: Uttoxeter, Ashbourne and Cheadle''. . Description This short river is a tributary of the River Dove; it is just ...

and sits astride of the A522.Staffordshire A-Z County Atlas: 2011 Edition: Scale:3.8 inches to 1 mile (5.9cm to 1km) The village is north west of the town of

Uttoxeter Uttoxeter ( , ) is a market town in the East Staffordshire district in the county of Staffordshire, England. It is near to the Derbyshire county border. It is situated from Burton upon Trent, from Stafford, from Stoke-on-Trent, from De ...

and is south east of

Stoke on Trent Stoke-on-Trent (often abbreviated to Stoke) is a city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Staffordshire, England, with an area of . In 2019, the city had an estimated population of 256,375. It is the largest settlement ...

. The nearest railway station is at Blythe Bridge, which is north west of the village, or at

, and gives access to trains on the

Crewe to Derby Line Crewe () is a railway town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East in Cheshire, England. The Crewe built-up area had a total population of 75,556 in 2011, which also covers parts of the adjacent civil parishes of Willaston, ...

, which is also a Community rail line known as the North Staffordshire line. The A50 major trunk road from

Stoke Stoke is a common place name in the United Kingdom. Stoke may refer to: Places United Kingdom The largest city called Stoke is Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire. See below. Berkshire * Stoke Row, Berkshire Bristol * Stoke Bishop * Stok ...

Derby Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby gai ...

bypasses the village and runs parallel with the A522 just south of the village. This road opened in April 1985 and took much of the traffic away from the village.

Population

The 2011 census recorded a population of 4,700 within the parish of Checkley in a total of 1,944 households. The parish comes under the Staffordshire Moorlands Non-Metropolitan District.

Notable buildings and structures

The village and parish of Checkley has a variety of listed buildings and structures including a Grade I listed parish church. In total there are 58 listed structures.

Parish Church of Saint Mary and All Saints

The parish church of Saint Mary and All Saints is a Grade I listed building.Saint Mary’s Church Listing
retrieved 24 April 2013 The earliest fabric in the church dates from the 12th century, with a south doorway of about 1300, and a

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

from the late 13th century. There were additions and alterations in the following two centuries, but the church was largely rebuilt in the 17th century. Inside the church is a

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mod ...

with a carving of a donkey, the

effigy An effigy is an often life-size sculptural representation of a specific person, or a prototypical figure. The term is mostly used for the makeshift dummies used for symbolic punishment in political protests and for the figures burned in certai ...

of a knight on a memorial from the early 14th century, and some stained glass also from the 14th century. The stalls date from about 1535.

References

Bibliography