Cresswell is a hamlet in

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation ''Staffs''.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It borders Cheshire to the north-west, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, ...

, England. It is approximately one mile SE of Blythe Bridge and has a population of approximately 300. From the 2011 census the population of this hamlet has been included with Draycott-in-the-Moors. The "Izaak Walton"

public house A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption Licensing laws of the United Kingdom#On-licence, on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the ...

and restaurant is named after the seventeenth-century fisherman Izaak Walton, whose book ''

The Compleat Angler ''The Compleat Angler'' (the spelling is sometimes modernised to ''The Complete Angler'', though this spelling also occurs in first editions) is a book by Izaak Walton, first published in 1653 by John and Richard Marriot, Richard Marriot in Lon ...

'' is still in publication today. Walton was born in

Stafford Stafford () is a market town and the county town of Staffordshire, England. It is located about south of Stoke-on-Trent, north of Wolverhampton, and northwest of Birmingham. The town had a population of 71,673 at the 2021–2022 United Kingd ...

, and legend has it that he fished in the River Blithe, which is near the pub. During the

English Civil War The English Civil War or Great Rebellion was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Cavaliers, Royalists and Roundhead, Parliamentarians in the Kingdom of England from 1642 to 1651. Part of the wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of th ...

Staffordshire saw a great deal of conflict. The local manor house Paynsley Hall was first held for Charles I, then garrisoned by

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

arian forces before being destroyed. The site of the hall is protected as a

scheduled ancient monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage, visu ...

. Although little

masonry Masonry is the craft of building a structure with brick, stone, or similar material, including mortar plastering which are often laid in, bound, and pasted together by mortar (masonry), mortar. The term ''masonry'' can also refer to the buildin ...

remains, it is significant as an example of a

moat A moat is a deep, broad ditch dug around a castle, fortification, building, or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. Moats can be dry or filled with water. In some places, moats evolved into more extensive water d ...

ed site. Although it is still a rural area, the hamlet is the home of the Blythe Colour Works, which was established to produce under- glaze colours for the pottery industry. Cresswell is also the home of Blythe Cricket Club. Cresswell formerly had a railway station on the Crewe to Derby Line, but, although trains still pass through the hamlet, there are now no stations between Blythe Bridge and

Uttoxeter Uttoxeter ( , ) is a market town and civil parish in the East Staffordshire borough of Staffordshire, England. It is near to the Derbyshire county border. The town is from Burton upon Trent via the A50 and the A38, from Stafford via the A51 ...

. In the twentieth century there was also a short line from Cresswell to Cheadle ( Cheadle Branch Line).

Places of worship

Cresswell has an old

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

community. After the

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

part of the population worshipped not in the local

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in com ...

at Draycott in the Moors, but in a private chapel at Paynsley Hall, whose owners, the Draycot family, remained faithful to the old religion.

Anthony Babington Anthony Babington (24 October 156120 September 1586) was an English gentleman convicted of plotting the assassination of Elizabeth I of England and conspiring with the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots, for which he was hanged, drawn and quartered ...

(famous for the Babington Plot) married into the Draycot family. In 1791 Roman Catholicism was legalised in England and St. Mary's Catholic Church was constructed to serve the local Roman Catholics. The church is now served by the clergy of St. Augustine's, Meir, Stoke-on-Trent.

References

{{authority control Borough of Stafford Villages in Staffordshire

Places of worship

See also

References