History on the village of Seighford in the county of Staffordshire. Research is augmented with photographs, details of licensees, stories of local folklore, census data, newspaper articles and a genealogy connections section for those studying their family history.

Seighford

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The parish records for Seighford record a hobby horse dance taking place here. There is a nice description of this in White's Directory of 1834 which states that it was "a sort of amusement which the inhabitants celebrated at Christmas, on New Year’s Day, and Twelfth day. On these occasions, a person danced through the principal street, carrying between his legs ‘the figure of a horse composed of thin boards. In his hands he bore a bow and arrow, which last entered a hole in the bow, and, stopping on a shoulder in it, made a sort of snapping noise as he drew it to and fro, keeping time with the music. Five or sir other individuals danced along with this person, each carrying on his shoulder six reindeer heads, three of them painted white, and three red; with the arms of the chief families, who had at different times been proprietors of the manor, painted on the palms of them. To this hobby horse dance, there also belonged a pot, which was kept by turns by four or five of the chief of the town, who provided cakes and ale to put into it. All the people who had any kindness for the good interest of the institution of the sport, gave pence a-piece for themselves and families, as also did foreigners who came to see it; with which money, the charge of the cakes and ale being defrayed, they not only repaired their church, but kept their poor too; which charges are not now perhaps so cheerfully borne.” This was very similar to the dance at Abbot's Bromley, a custom that was upheld in other parts of Staffordshire.

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Holly Bush Inn

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"This is grain, which any fool can eat, but for which the Lord intended a more divine means of consumption... Beer!”
Friar Tuck - Robin Hood

1834 White's Directory
Seighford is a scattered village, 3 miles W. by N. of Stafford, seated on a pleasant declivity, above a small brook which flows eastward from Latford Pool to the River Sow. Its parish contains the hamlets of Aston, Doxey and Derrington, from 1 to I½ mile SE,; Cotton Clanford, 1 mile S., and Great and Little Bridgeford, on the Sow river, I. mile N. of Seighford, and 3½ miles N.E. of Stafford. It forms a highly cultivated district, containing 898 inhabitants, and belonging to a number of proprietors, the largest of whom is Francis Eld, Esq., the lord of the manor and impropriator of the tithes, whose residence is at Seighford Hall, an ancient half-timbered house with modern wings, standing in a small but well-wooded park, on the west side of the village. The church, dedicated to St. Chad, was partly rebuilt of brick about eighty years go, and contains many neat mural monuments. The living is a vicarage in the patronage of the King, and incumbency of the Rev. Thomas Walker Richards; but the Rev. E. J. Rathbone performs the duty. Aston Hall, a neat mansion, is the seat of Thomas Eld, gentleman. In 1712, five acres of land, at Seighford, was purchased with £61, left by Dorothy Bridgeman and others, and is now let for £5.5s. per annum, of which £3.3s. is paid for the education of six free scholars, and the remainder is given in bread to the poor parishioners, together with 10s. as the interest of £10 left by the late Francis Eld, Esq. The poor have also 40s. yearly out of Waterstocks farm, and the vicar 6s. 8d., yearly, out of Silkmore meadow, left by Richard Chamberlain, in 1628. An annuity of 10s. out of the Hilton estate, near Bushbury, left by Richard Umpton, in 1642, has not been paid during the last thirty years. Coton-Clanford, on the south side of the parish, is noted as the birthplace of the Rev. William Wollaston, who was born in 1650, and spent the latter part of his life in close retirement in London, where he died, in 1724, after publishing a variety of works, distinguished by the display of powerful abilities and great erudition. Of his principal treatise, entitled '' The Religion of Nature Delineated," upwards of 10,000 copies were sold within a few years after its publication; though it exposed him to the censure of many zealous Christians, some of whom considered him as belonging to Dr. Clarice's fourth class of Deists.

Abbott James, blacksmith, Seighford
Anderson, David, gentleman, Coton-Clanford
Bagnall , Miss Susanna, Seighford
Ball Sarah, shopkeeper, Derrington
Birkin, Francis, butcher, Seighford
Burgess, John, corn miller, Little Bridgeford
Cope, John, wheelwright, Coton-Clanford
Cope, Thomas, wheelwright, Seighford
Dent, John, tailor, Great Bridgeford
Eld, Francis, esq. Seighford Hall
Eld, Richard, gentleman, Seighford
Eld, Thomas, gentleman, Aston Hall
Evans, John, wheelwright, Little Bridgeford
Fowler, Ann, beer house, Seighford
Gripton, James, tailor, Derrington
Haywood, Mary, shopkeeper, Little Bridgeford
Hodgetts, William, tailor and parish clerk
Kirby, William, blacksmith, Little Bridgeford
Parker, John, brick maker, Seighford
Parker, James, shoemaker, Aston
Rathbone, Rev. Edward John, M.A.
Slinn, Edward, blacksmith/beerhouse, Derrington
Sutton, Joseph, tailor, Derrington
Talbot, John, victualler, White Hart
Walters, John, blacksmith, Seighford
Waiton, John, victualler & wheelwright, Derrington
Woollams, Richard, schoolmaster, Seighford
Woollams, William, weaver & shopkeeper
Worthington, Thomas & Phillip, shoemakers