Stafford (GB)
Stafford is a market town and the county town of Staffordshire, in the West Midlands region of England.Stafford means "ford" by a staithe (landing place). The original settlement was on a dry sand and gravel peninsula that offered a strategic crossing point in the marshy valley of the River Sow, a tributary of the River Trent. There is still a large area of marshland north-west of the town, which is subject to flooding and did so in 1947, 2000, 2007 and 2019.
Stafford is thought to have been founded about AD 700 by a Mercian prince called Bertelin, who, legend has it, founded a hermitage on a peninsula named Betheney. Until recently it was thought that the remains of a wooden preaching cross from the time had been found under the remains of St Bertelin's Chapel, next to the later collegiate Church of St Mary in the town centre. Recent reappraisal of the evidence shows this to be a misinterpretation – it was a tree-trunk coffin placed centrally in the first, timber chapel around the time that Æthelflæd founded the burh in 913. It may have been placed there as a commemoration or veneration of St Bertelin.
In 1837 the Grand Junction Railway built a line from Birmingham to Warrington to pass through the town and link at Warrington, via another line, with the Liverpool–Manchester railway. Birmingham provided the first connection to London. Other lines followed. Stafford became a major junction, which helped to attract other industries. The Friars' Walk drill hall was completed in 1913, just in time for the First World War.
See Also: Cannock Chase - Rugeley Camp & Brocton Camp Training camps for World War I.
Stafford
Branch/Sub-Offices & Stations
Cannock Chase
Stafford Station
_SS_b.jpg)
_SS_a.jpg)
Stafford railway station is a major interchange railway station in Stafford, Staffordshire, England, and is the second busiest railway station in Staffordshire, after Stoke-on-Trent. The station serves the county town, as well as surrounding villages. The station lies on the junction of the Trent Valley Line, the Birmingham Loop/Rugby-Birmingham-Stafford Line, and the West Coast Main Line.
The first station was built by the Grand Junction Railway and opened in July 1837. It soon became inadequate and was replaced by a second station in 1844.
A third station was built in 1862, which was eventually replaced by the current concrete Brutalist building in 1962, built as part of the modernisation programme which saw the electrification of the West Coast Main Line.
_a.jpg){kind=link}