Church Leigh

Church Leigh
The village of Church Leigh
Church Leigh  Church Leigh shown within Staffordshire
Population	906
OS grid reference	SK020350
– London	148 mi (238 km)
Civil parish	Leigh CP
District	East Staffordshire
Shire county	Staffordshire
Region	West Midlands
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	STOKE-ON-TRENT
Postcode district	ST10
Dialling code	01889
Police	Staffordshire
Fire	Staffordshire
Ambulance	West Midlands
EU Parliament	West Midlands
UK Parliament	Burton
List of places UK England Staffordshire

Coordinates: 52°55′12″N 1°57′57″W / 52.919978°N 1.965834°W / 52.919978; -1.965834

Church Leigh is a village and largest settlement in the civil parish of Leigh in the English county of Staffordshire, England. The village is 6.2 miles (10.0 km) WNW of the town of Uttoxeter, 14.3 miles (23.0 km) north east of Stafford and 148 miles (238 km) north west of London.

Transport

Roads

The village lies 0.8 miles south of the A50 that runs from Warrington to Leicester and is dualled on this section (between Stoke-on-Trent and the M1 motorway).^[1]

Rail

The nearest railway station is at Uttoxeter for the Crewe to Derby line on the national network.

Other

The nearest airport is East Midlands Airport between Derby, Loughborough and Nottingham.

History

Church Leigh has an entry in the Domesday Book of 1085.^[2] In the great book Church Leigh is recorded by the name Lege

Localities

The civil parish of Leigh is centred on the clustered village of Church Leigh but has six satellite hamlets. Separating the last four from the first is a field buffer including the River Blithe which flows south, via the Blithfield Reservoir lake 5 miles (8.0 km) south to feed the River Trent at Alrewas, Staffordshire.

Withington

Withington is a linear settlement on five lanes that is separated to the west from Church Leigh by fields covering 300m; its oldest farmhouse is a listed building.^[3][4]

Upper Leigh

Upper Leigh is a linear settlement on five or six lanes that is separated to the south-east from Lower Leigh by fields covering 100m; it has three listed buildings: Moor Farm, Moor House Farm and Manor Farm.^[4]

Lower Leigh

Lower Leigh is on a winding lane, separated from the village Primary School and recreation ground by less than 100 metres, to its north-west. The middle of the parish's three bridges along the lanes over the River Blithe is close to the centre of Lower Leigh. Next to this bridge is the aptly-named Brook Farmhouse.^[4][5]

Morrilow Heath

This is the largest hamlet in area and population, and the most remote. To the south-west, it is on high ground and has a salient boundary as far as the source of the Sprink Brook.

Middleton Green

Middleton Green is small in population and less than 200m north-east of Morrilow Heath and is 1 mile (1.6 km) south-west of Lower Leigh. Birchwood Park, an isolated farm, towards the Sprink Brook was historically a manor of sorts and is an architectural listed building, like the others in the parish which are non-ecclesiastical, at Grade II only. Big Wood, rises to the southern border here with extensive views over the rest of the village^[6]

Dods Leigh

This traditionally agricultural cluster of buildings includes a chapel, and is 0.5 miles (0.80 km) south of Lower Leigh.^[4]

Godstone

Just 300m south of Dods Leigh, a traditional manor forms a linear settlement, the traces of which can be made out from the properties, The Orchard, Godstone House and Godstone Cottage, as well as Old Woodcutter, the main four buildings.^[4]

Field

Six farms make up a cluster which forms Field; the Sprink Brook discharges to the River Blythe at a point in the south of the hamlet.^[4]

References

External links

Media related to Church Leigh at Wikimedia Commons