Bagnall, Staffordshire

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Bagnall
Bagnall shown within Staffordshire
OS grid reference	SJ930508
District	Staffordshire Moorlands
Shire county	Staffordshire
Region	West Midlands
Constituent country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Postcode district	ST9
Dialling code	01782
Police	Staffordshire
Fire	Staffordshire
Ambulance	West Midlands
European Parliament	West Midlands
UK Parliament	Stoke-on-Trent North
List of places: UK • England • Staffordshire

Coordinates: 53°03′16″N 2°06′17″W / 53.0545, -2.1047

For other uses, see Bagnall.

Bagnall is a village and civil parish in the Staffordshire Moorlands district of Staffordshire, England, just to the north-east of the Stoke-on-Trent urban area. According to the 2001 census the parish had a population of 700.

The Domesday Book of 1086 did not record Bagnall as a settlement at that time but noted that the area that now comprises the parish was largely wasteland containing one or two ploughlands, being part of the parish of Endon.

The earliest form of the placename is comprised of two Anglo Saxon elements. The Oxford Dictionary of Placenames, A D Mills (Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-280074-4) states:

Bagnall, Staffs. Badegenhall 1273. Probably "nook of land of a man called Badeca". Old English Pers. name (genitive -n) +halh.

The etymologist Duigan in his "Notes on Staffordshire Place-names" suggests Bacga as the personal prefix, and the Old English word holt meaning woodland as opposed to halh above.

The etymologist Eckwall sees the first element as Old English Bodeca as the personal noun, with the second syllable being either halh or holt.

Early evidence of an individual adopting or being attributed with the surname originating from the settlement occurred when William de Bagenold was a witness to the deed of a gift of Ela de Aldethelegh to Trentham Priory circa 1154 (source: Dugdale's Monistacon vol.6, page 397).

The siting of the early settlement at Bagnall probably owes its origins to some sort of religious observance, it being sited at a place where cross-moorland routes converged. It was certainly on the old salt route to Weston-on-Trent.