Penkridge is a village and parish in Staffordshire with a history stretching back to the Anglo-Saxon period. A religious as well as a commercial centre, it was originally centred on the Collegiate Church of St. Michael and All Angels, a chapel royal and royal peculiar that maintained its independence until the Reformation. Mentioned in Domesday, Penkridge underwent a period of growth from the 13th century, as the Forest Law was loosened, and evolved into a patchwork of manors of greatly varying size and importance, heavily dependent on agriculture. From the 16th century it was increasingly dominated by a single landed gentry family, the Littletons, who ultimately attained the Peerage of the United Kingdom as the Barons Hatherton, and who helped modernise its agriculture and education system. The Industrial Revolution inaugurated a steady improvement in transport and communications that helped shape the modern village. In the second half of the 20th century, Penkridge grew rapidly, evolving into a mainly residential area, while retaining its commercial centre, its links with the countryside and its fine church.
Early settlement Early human occupation of the immediate area around Penkridge has been confirmed by the presence of a Bronze or Iron Age barrow at nearby Rowley Hill.Victoria County History of Staffordshire, pp.192-3, 376 A significant settlement in this vicinity has existed since pre-Roman times, with its original location being at the intersection of the River Penk and what became the Roman military road known as Watling Street (today's A5 trunk road). This would place it between Water Eaton and Gailey, about SSW of the modern town.
Anglo-Saxon origins
The village of Penkridge in its current location dates back at least to the early Middle Ages, when the area was part of Mercia, and it held an important place in local society, trade, and religious observance.
The first clear reference to the settlement of Pencric comes from the reign of Edgar the Peaceful (959-975), who issued a royal charter from it in 958, describing it as a "famous place".The Electronic Sawyer: Online Catalogue of Anglo-Saxon Charters, S667 Edgar says he is in loco famoso qui dicitur Pencric. Around 1000, Wulfgeat, a Shropshire landowner, left bullocks to the church at Penkridge, which means that the church must date from at least the 10th century. In the 16th century, John Alen, dean of Penkridge and Archbishop of Dublin, claimed that the founder of the collegiate church of St. Michael at Penkridge was King Eadred (946-55), Edgar's uncle, which seems plausible.Victoria County History: Staffordshire: Volume 3, 34: The College of St. Michael, Penkridge. The origins of the settlement may go back much earlier in the Anglo-Saxon period, but the known dates suggest that it achieved considerable importance in the mid-10th century and that the village's significance was in large part dependent on its important church.
A local legend claims that King Edgar made Penkridge his capital for three years whilst he was reconquering the Danelaw. However most historical sources see the reign of Edgar as an uneventful one, as his cognomen suggests, and there is no record of any internal strife between English and Danes during his reign, making this claim doubtful. At Domesday, more than a century later, Penkridge was still a royal manor, and St. Michael's was a chapel royal. This makes it likely that Edgar stayed here simply because it was one of his homes: medieval rulers were itinerant, moving with their retinue to consume their resources in situ, rather than having them transported to a capital.
In about 1086, Domesday not only recorded the then situation at Penkridge, but gave considerable insight into changes and continuities since the Anglo-Saxon period. Penkridge was still held by the king, William the Conqueror, directly, not simply as overlord of another magnate - just as Edward the Confessor held it before the Norman Conquest. The king had a mill and a substantial area of woodland. The numbers working on the king's land are, however, very small: just two slaves, two villeins and two smallholders, although the land at Penkridge was worth 40 shillings annually. Then there were the subsidiary parts of the manor: Wolgarston, Drayton, Congreve, Dunston, Cowley and Beffcote, which had almost 30 workers and had increased in value from 65s. to 100s. since the Conquest – unusual in the Midlands or North at that time.
At Penkridge itself a substantial part of the agricultural land was held from the king by nine clerics, who had a hide of land, worked by six slaves and seven villeins. These clerics had a further 2¾ hides at Gnosall, to the north, with twelve workers. Both these holdings had risen greatly in value since the Conquest. In Henry I's time, there was a dispute between the Abbey of Saint-Remi or Saint-Rémy at Reims in Northern France, which claimed the church at Lapley, next to its daughter house, Lapley Priory, and a royal chaplain. It is believed the clerk in question was a canon of Penkridge, trying to vindicate an ancient claim to Lapley.Victoria County History: Staffordshire: Volume 3, 34: The College of St. Michael, Penkridge, footnote 5. A 13th-century source confirms that Lapley once belonged to Penkridge. The court found in favour of Saint-Rémy and Lapley was confirmed as a small independent parish in the advowson of Saint-Rémy. However, this was not a result of the Norman Conquest directly, but was intended as confirmation of a grant to the French abbey by Ælfgar, Earl of Mercia, in the closing years of the Anglo-Saxon monarchy.
Penkridge seems to have passed through the Conquest not only unscathed but enhanced in wealth and status: a royal manor, with a sizeable royal demesne and a substantial church, staffed by a community of clerics. However, it was clearly not, in the modern sense, a village. Penkridge itself would have been a small village on the southern bank of the River Penk, with the homes of the laity grouped to the east of the church, along the Stafford-Worcester road, and with a scattering of hamlets in the surrounding area.
Medieval Penkridge
St. Michael's Collegiate Church
The church was the most notable feature of Penkridge from late Anglo-Saxon times. By the 13th century, it had reached a distinctive form. It was a chapel royal - a place set aside by the monarchs for their own use. This made it independent of the local Bishop of Lichfield - an institution called a Royal Peculiar. It was a collegiate church, staffed by a college of priests, who formed its chapter. It was organised like a cathedral chapter. It was headed by the Archbishop of Dublin.
The college was already a well-established institution by the Norman Conquest. The nine clerics mentioned in Domesday were far too many for a small village and served a wide area of Staffordshire from their base in Penkridge. The priests who belonged the college were often called canons, the usual term for permanent staff attached to a cathedral or large church. As a body, they were also known as a chapter. The chapter survived the Norman Conquest in much the same form as in Anglo-Saxon times. Throughout its existence, it was made up of secular clergy, not monks.VCH: Staffordshire: Volume 3: 34
In all this, St. Michael's, Penridge, was similar to its nearby namesake, St. Michael's Collegiate Church at Tettenhall,VCH: Staffordshire: Volume 3: 37 to St. Peter's Collegiate Church, Wolverhampton, and to St Mary's College at Stafford.VCH: Staffordshire: Volume 3: 35 All were chapels royal, similarly organised and zealously guarding their independence. They formed an indigestible block within the borders of the diocese of Lichfield, whose bishop was the ordinary - the officer responsible for carrying out the laws of the Church and maintaining proper order in the region. Sometimes it seems that they acted in concert, forming a united front against determined bishops. This was in stark contrast to the relative malleability of the small, local parish churches.
The church and college lost their independence only during the Anarchy of King Stephen's reign. Keen to consolidate the support of the church for his coup against Empress Matilda, Stephen gave the churches of Penkridge and Stafford to Roger de Clinton, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. At some time after the first Plantagenet ruler, Henry II, took over in 1154, Penkridge escaped episcopal control. Certainly by 1180 it was again the possession of the king. In the meantime, it had been reorganised to a template derived from the chapter of Lichfield Cathedral, which was established on the same lines in the mid-12th century. Like a cathedral, the college was now headed by a dean. The first dean was called Robert but little else is known of him. The canons were now prebendaries, meaning that each was supported by revenue from a fixed group of estates and rights that constituted his prebend, and which was technically attached to his choir stall, not to him personally. There were prebends of Coppenhall, Stretton, Shareshill, Dunston, Penkridge, Congreve, and Longridge. It is possible that the prebend of Penkridge absorbed the lands held by the nine priests of the Domesday survey.VCH: Staffordshire: Volume 5:16, s.3. In addition, two prebends were later created for the two chantries. For many decades Cannock was also a prebend of Penkridge, although it was strongly disputed by the chapter of Lichfield, and seems to have slipped out of Penkridge's grasp permanently in the mid-14th century.
In 1215, the year of Magna Carta, King John conferred the advowson of the deanery - or right to appoint a dean - on Henry de Loundres, or Henry of London, a devoted servant of the Crown who had once been Archdeacon of Stafford, and had recently been consecrated Archbishop of Dublin. John was under enormous pressure from the barons, so he was keen to consolidate his supporters. The Hose or Hussey family had been granted the manor of Penkridge some time previously, but in 1215 Hugh Hose, the putative successor to the manor, was a ward of King John. John induced him to convey the manor to the archbishop, along with Congreve, Wolgarston, Cowley, Beffcote, and Little Onn (in Church Eaton), all of which were considered "members" or constituent parts of Penkridge manor.
The archbishop used the opportunity to enrich both his family and his diocese. He divided the manor permanently into two unequal parts. Two-thirds he gave to his nephew, Andrew de Blund. The remaining third Henry gave to the church: it became known as the deanery manor. The de Blund family, later rendered as Blount, held the manor of Penkridge for about 140 years, finally selling it to other lay lords. Along with the prebends and various other holdings, the Deanery Manor was to finance the college of St. Michael for more than 300 years. When the newly enriched deanery fell vacant in 1226, Henry seized the opportunity to appoint himself to the post. Although John's son, Henry III challenged this by appointing a dean of his own, the relevant charter was recovered and the principle established that the deanery of Penkridge was to be held by the archbishops of Dublin, as it was from this point until the Reformation. This was an arrangement unique to Penkridge.