Weston is a village situated five miles east of the county town of Stafford en route to the market town of Uttoxeter. The village of Gayton is approximately one mile to the east. Weston was formerly a small farming community. It has now grown to a population of some 1500 people (including Gayton), many of whom commute to work in the local towns.
Originally, the village of Weston was a forest clearing on the outskirts of the Chartley Estate. The high ground meant that the surrounding land was well drained with a good water supply from the nearby River Trent. This small settlement was also located at the intersection of the London - Lichfield - Chester road and the Shrewsbury - Stafford - Derby road (the current A51 and A518 respectively). The road from Stafford originally forded the Trent. In the late 18th Century a flood washed away the bridge there. It was later replaced by a single arch stone bridge in the 19th century.
Weston is an ancient parish. It originally formed part of the great Ferrers Estate of Chartley which was sold off in 1904.
The Parish Church of St. Andrews was restored by George Gilbert Scott in the 1860s and by William Butterfield in the 1870s. Butterfield's restoration revealed some of the original Norman work. The bell tower dates from the early 13th Century. The tower holds two bells; "Ave Maria" dating from 1402 and "Ann Shaw" dating from 1962. A third bell, "Katerina", dating from 1500, can be found cracked upon the floor. The church also houses a silver communion paten dating from the early 15th Century. The Parish registers, kept by Staffordshire Record Office, date from 1581.
In the village, the present thatched "Manor House", which has been used as a farm building in the past, dates from the 16th Century. In the mid 19th Century it was used as the national School and school keeper's cottage, then as a Wesleyan Methodist meeting house until the present Methodist Church was built at the start of the 20th Century along the main London - Chester road.
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