Sandon, Staffordshire

Historical Description

Sandon, a village and a parish in Staffordshire. The village stands near the river Trent and the North Staffordshire Canal, 4½ miles SE of Stone, and 5 NNE of Stafford. It has a station on the North Staffordshire railway, and a post and money order office under Stone; telegraph office at the railway station. It gives the title of Viscount to the Earl of Harrowby. The parish contains also Hardiwick, Smalrise, and Twerlow hamlets, and comprises 3574 acres; population, 472. There is a parish council consisting of seven members. The manor belonged to Earl Algar, passed to Hugh Lupus, the De Malbancs, who founded the church, the Vemons, Staffords, Erdeswickes, Digbys, and the ducal family of Hamilton, from whom it passed by purchase to the first Lord Harrowby (1777), and with Sandon Hall belongs now to the Earl of Harrowby. Sandon Hall is a handsome Jacobean mansion built in 1852 to replace an older hall which was burnt down in 1848. An obelisk, 75 feet high, erected in 1806 to the memory of Pitt, stands on an eminence in the park, and a Gothic shrine containing two tablets to Spencer Perceval is in a grove on the E side of the park. The park and plantations are very extensive, and beautiful views are obtained from the high ground. An action between the Parliamentarians and the Royalists was fought at Hopton Heath in 1642, The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Lichfield; net value, £245 with residence. Patron, the Earl of Harrowby. The church stands on a hill bordering on the park, and is Early English. It was enlarged and partially restored in 1840, and contains a portion of the old chancel screen, the tomb and monument of Samson Erdeswicke the antiquary, who was a native, and monuments of the Erdeswicke, Digby, and Ryder families. Anne Hector, mentioned in Boswell's " Life of Johnson " as the " first woman with whom the doctor was in love," and who afterwards became the wife of the Rev. Walter Carless, vicar of Sandon, was buried with her husband in the churchyard near the porch.

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.

Church Records

Findmypast, in association with the Staffordshire & Stoke on Trent Archive Service have the Baptisms, Banns, Marriages, and Burials online for Sandon

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Sandon from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Sandon (All Saints))

Land and Property

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

Maps

Online maps of Sandon 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