Rocester, Staffordshire

Historical Description

Rocester, a village and a parish in Staffordshire. The village stands near the confluence of the rivers Dove and Churnet, at the boundary with Derbyshire, 4 miles N by E of Uttoxeter, and has a station at the junction of the Ashborne branch with the main line of the North Staffordshire railway, and a post, money order, and telegraph office (S.O.) The parish contains also the hamlets of Rocester Green, Combridge, Denstone, Quixhill, and Stubwood, the last three being included in the ecclesiastical parish of Denstone. Acreage, 2537; population of the civil parish, 1288; of the ecclesiastical, 1150. Dove Leys, Barrow Hill, and Woodseat are chief residences. An abbey of Blackcanons was founded here in 1146, but has left no remains. Rocester was a Roman station, and Roman remains have been found. A one-arched bridge of 60 feet in span was erected over the Dove in 1839-40. A large cotton mill and stone works are here. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Lichfield; net value, £174 with residence. The church was rebuilt, with the exception of the tower, in 1872. In the churchyard are three sculptured sepulchral slabs and the shaft of a cross. There are Primitive Methodist and Wesleyan chapels.

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 Rocester from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Rocester (St. Michael))

Land and Property

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

Maps

Online maps of Rocester 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

Villages, Hamlets, &c