Little Haywood is a village in

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 under Colwich. It lies beside a main arterial highway, the A51 (linking the

English Midlands The Midlands (also referred to as Central England) are a part of England that broadly correspond to the Kingdom of Mercia of the Early Middle Ages, bordered by Wales, Northern England and Southern England. The Midlands were important in the Ind ...

with

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

) but traffic through the village is mainly light, owing to this bypass. Nearby also is the West Coast Main Line railway, the

Trent and Mersey Canal The Trent and Mersey Canal is a canal in Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Cheshire in north-central England. It is a "narrow canal" for the vast majority of its length, but at the extremities to the east of Burton upon Trent and north of Middle ...

and beside it, the river

Trent Trent may refer to: Places Italy * Trento in northern Italy, site of the Council of Trent United Kingdom * Trent, Dorset, England, United Kingdom Germany * Trent, Germany, a municipality on the island of Rügen United States * Trent, California, ...

. Little Haywood is about northwest of

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, about north of

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

, northwest of

Rugeley Rugeley ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the Cannock Chase District in Staffordshire, England. It lies on the north-eastern edge of Cannock Chase next to the River Trent; it is situated north of Lichfield, south-east of Stafford, nort ...

and east of

Stafford Stafford () is a market town and the county town of Staffordshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It lies about north of Wolverhampton, south of Stoke-on-Trent and northwest of Birmingham. The town had a population of 70,145 in t ...

. Little Haywood is cited in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

of 1086. Although originally a small village, housing expansion during the 1980s has created a

commuter village A commuter town is a populated area that is primarily residential rather than commercial or industrial. Routine travel from home to work and back is called commuting, which is where the term comes from. A commuter town may be called by many o ...

and most of its inhabitants have employment far outside the confines of the Haywood area.

Location

Little Haywood is situated on the side of a hill in the system of valleys drained by the rivers

and Sow. It lies near the northern edge of The Chase and is surrounded in the main by

farmland Agricultural land is typically land ''devoted to'' agriculture, the systematic and controlled use of other forms of lifeparticularly the rearing of livestock and production of cropsto produce food for humans. It is generally synonymous with bot ...

. Geologically, the village lies on

Triassic The Triassic ( ) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.6 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.36 Mya. The Triassic is the first and shortest period ...

sandstone of the Sherwood Sandstone Group, with overlying glacial deposits from the last

glaciation A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate betw ...

of Great Britain. The village lies within the Stafford borough of

and its name is derived from the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

"haeg wadu," meaning an enclosure in woodland.

Waterways

There are three main waterways running near to Little Haywood: the

River Sow The River Sow is a tributary of the River Trent in Staffordshire, England, and is the river that flows through Stafford. Course The river rises to the south of Loggerheads, near Broughton and flows south-east beside the villages of Fairoak, ...

, the

River Trent The Trent is the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, third-longest river in the United Kingdom. Its Source (river or stream), source is in Staffordshire, on the southern edge of Biddulph Moor. It flows through and drains the North Midland ...

and the

, which was opened in 1777. A wooden

footbridge A footbridge (also a pedestrian bridge, pedestrian overpass, or pedestrian overcrossing) is a bridge designed solely for pedestrians.''Oxford English Dictionary'' While the primary meaning for a bridge is a structure which links "two points at a ...

carrying Meadow Lane across the Trent was built in 1830. Previously the river was crossed by a ford, which was still used by cattle and

horse-drawn vehicle A horse-drawn vehicle is a mechanized piece of equipment pulled by one horse or by a team of horses. These vehicles typically had two or four wheels and were used to carry passengers and/or a load. They were once common worldwide, but they have m ...

s after the footbridge was constructed. This wooden bridge was replaced by a brick- and stone-built Weetman's Bridge in 1887. Less than northwest of Little Haywood, the northeastern end of the

Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal The Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal is a navigable narrow canal in Staffordshire and Worcestershire in the English Midlands. It is long, linking the River Severn at Stourport in Worcestershire with the Trent and Mersey Canal at Haywoo ...

joins the Trent and Mersey Canal. The Trent and Mersey Canal mile post at Little Haywood is number 37.

Features and facilities

Saint Mary's Abbey

The most prominent building in Little Haywood is Saint Mary's Abbey, Colwich. This

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

abbey is home to a community of enclosed

Benedictine , image = Medalla San Benito.PNG , caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal , abbreviation = OSB , formation = , motto = (English: 'Pray and Work') , foun ...

nuns and although part of the neighbouring Colwich

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

, the abbey and its grounds lie alongside the road that runs through Little Haywood. The Abbey Church of Saint Mary used to cover a large amount of Little Haywood and it has been said that there are tunnels leading from the abbey to

Lichfield Cathedral Lichfield Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in Lichfield, Staffordshire, England, one of only three cathedrals in the United Kingdom with three spires (together with Truro Cathedral and St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh), and the only medie ...

, away, and to Shugborough Hall, a little over away in the opposite direction. Within the village, on land owned by Shugborough Hall, there is evidence of small-scale stone quarrying in the area known to locals as "the cliffs" or "the caves".

Pubs and shops

The village and its outlying neighbours have an active parish community; the parish council organises events such as village fetes and on a day-to-day basis the social life of the village revolves around its public houses: the 'Red Lion' and the 'Lamb and Flag'. There is no church in Little Haywood, no village green and no school. There are, however, the two pubs with the nearest general store being situated within Great Haywood. The nearby village of Colwich is less than away and has a church and a

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...

but no pub or general store, and so amenities are often shared.

Wall

At the side of the road that runs from Little Haywood towards the village of Great Haywood, away, is an example of a "make work wall", built by employees of Earl Talbot at Haywood Manor (no longer standing) during times when there was little else to do. In order to keep the workers from being idle, Talbot would make work for them in the form of features whose purpose might best be described as decorative.

J. R. R. Tolkien

The village was home to the newly married Edith Tolkien, wife of author

J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philology, philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was ...

, from March 1916 to February 1917. Tolkien stayed with his wife in Cottage 1, Gipsy Green, on the Teddesley Park Estate, near the village during the winter of 1916, whilst recuperating from trench fever. The surrounding landscape of Cannock Chase was said to be an inspiration for his early literary works about Middle-earth.. At the cottage he began work on what would become ''

The Silmarillion ''The Silmarillion'' () is a collection of myths and stories in varying styles by the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien. It was edited and published posthumously by his son Christopher Tolkien in 1977, assisted by the fantasy author Guy Gavriel ...

''. The village of Norbury lies about away and may relate to the "Norbury of the Kings" that appears in ''

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's boo ...

''.

Tragic accidents at Colwich Junction

On 18 September 1986 two passenger trains collided at Colwich Junction, less than half a mile from Little Haywood, killing the driver of one of the trains and injuring 75 passengers. Several carriages of the crowded

InterCity InterCity (commonly abbreviated ''IC'' on timetables and tickets) is the classification applied to certain long-distance passenger train services in Europe. Such trains (in contrast to regional, local, or commuter trains) generally call at m ...

services were derailed. On 2 January 2009, a Piper Cherokee single engine light aircraft came down at Colwich junction, killing the three people on board.

References

External links

A map of Little Haywood dating from 1887The Staffordshire History Home Page
{{authority control Borough of Stafford Villages in Staffordshire