Spath, is a small village north 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 ...

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 ...

, England. For population details as taken at the 2011 census see Uttoxeter Rural. Spath is on 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 is divided from Uttoxeter by the

A50 road A5 and variants may refer to: Science and mathematics * A5 regulatory sequence in biochemistry * A5, the abbreviation for the androgen Androstenediol * Annexin A5, a human cellular protein * ATC code A05 ''Bile and liver therapy'', a subgroup of ...

. In UK

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

history, Spath is notable as the site of the first automatic (i.e. train-operated)

level crossing A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, Trail, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line crossing over or under using an Overpass#Railway, overpass ...

in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

(AHBC: automatic half barrier crossing), which came into operation on 5 February 1961. The railway closed four years later, and has now been dismantled, the road which crossed it via the automatic crossing is now gated and only leads to a farm and there is no remaining visible sign of the crossing. Spath was the original home of Stevensons of Uttoxeter, a bus company that celebrated its 80th anniversary in 2007.

Notes

Villages in Staffordshire Staffordshire Moorlands {{Staffordshire-geo-stub