Brocton, Staffordshire

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Brocton is a village and civil parish in the Stafford borough of Staffordshire, England. It about four miles (6 km) south-east of Stafford town centre, and just outside the built-up area of Stafford, on the edge of Cannock Chase. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 1,052. It is one of the most affluent areas in Staffordshire and is an AONB. There is a single shop/post office and some of the most beautiful timber framed houses in Staffordshire good examples can be seen in Park Lane and The Green. Brocton was once well known to servicemen as a WW1 Military Training Camp remnants of which can still be seen up at the top of Chase Road, J.R.R. Tolkien came to Staffordshire in August 1915 when he served his Military training at an Army camp on the ancient forest and Royal hunting ground of Cannock Chase, Stafford. The military camp near Brocton was situated on the high ground of the 100 square miles (260 km²) of the chase with its rolling moorland, unusual rock formations and far reaching views leading to dense forest all around. In March 1916 Tolkien married Edith Bratt and they moved into accommodation in Great Haywood, a small village on the edge of the Chase. Walking from the camp to his wife's house at the Presbytery in Great Haywood Tolkien would have passed through the many changing wild landscapes of the chase and past the great sessile oaks of Brocton Coppice, many of which still stand at over 1000 years old. The name Cannock itself comes from the Old English words 'Cann' meaning powerful and 'Aic' meaning oak.