Blore, Staffordshire

Historical Description

Blore, a township and a parish in Staffordshire. The township bears the name of Blore-with-Swinscoe, and lies on the river Dove, 4 miles NW of Ashborne, which is the post town. Acreage of the parish, 1885; population, 178; of the ecclesiastical parish (which is called Blore Ray and includes Calton-in-Blore), 252. Blore Hall, formerly the seat of the Basset family, is now a farmhouse. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Lichfield; net value, £125 with residence. The church dates from Norman times, as the pillars of its old doorway (now blocked up) clearly show. Its oldest windows are Early English. It was partly pulled down and restored in Tudor times. Since then its outward structure has undergone no change. Inside is a 10th century brass and other monuments to the Basset family, also an ancient screen, and a bit of old stained glass, pronounced to be the most beautiful in the diocese. The old oak in the church is all cloven, not sawn. The church was repaired in 1845, and again in 1877. In the parish of Blore and Swinscoe there are no less than eight or nine "Lows" or prehistoric burial mounds. There is a Primitive Methodist chapel in the hamlet of Swinscoe.

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Civil Registration

For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Blore from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Blore, or Blore-Roy (St. Bartholomew))

Land and Property

A full transcript of the Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Staffordshire is online.

Maps

Online maps of Blore are available from a number of sites:

• Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• Google Streetview.
• National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
• OpenStreetMap.
• old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
• Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)

Newspapers and Periodicals

The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Staffordshire newspapers online:

• Staffordshire Advertiser
• Tamworth Herald
• Lichfield Mercury
• Staffordshire Sentinel
• Wolverhampton Chronicle and Staffordshire Advertiser