Introduction
THIS VOLUME covers the ancient parish of
Burton-upon-Trent, lying on the river Trent which
forms the county's eastern boundary with Derbyshire. (fn. 1)
The article on Burton town comprises sections on its
general history arranged chronologically, followed by
sections on specific topics. Then come articles on the
villages in the extensive medieval parish (namely Branston, Horninglow, Stretton, and Winshill), together
with an article on Stapenhill, which was originally a
township in the Derbyshire parish of the same name
but which was added to the municipal borough in the
late 19th century. In the Staffordshire hundred of
Offlow, Burton became a municipal borough in 1878
and a county borough in 1901, but since 1974 it has
been in East Staffordshire district. The surrounding
rural area was in Tutbury rural district until 1974.
The river Trent forms a broad flood plain as it flows
north through the area, especially on its west side
before the land begins to rise steeply up to the Needwood plateau. There are a number of significant
archaeological sites on the river terraces in the
Burton area, notably a late Neolithic or early Bronze
Age settlement near Catholme Farm, in Barton-under-Needwood, and many of the cropmarks which have
been detected in that area may represent farming
activities in the Iron Age or Roman period. The
Roman Ryknild Street running from Wall (near Lichfield) to Derby, took a line west of the later settlement
at Burton, crossing the river Dove in Stretton.
Burton came to prominence in late Anglo-Saxon
period as the site of a Benedictine abbey, itself almost
certainly the successor to a 7th-century minster church
which came to be associated with the legendary St.
Modwen. It became a borough in the Middle Ages, but
the burgesses failed to develop powers of self-government and the town continued to be governed by the
abbey. Besides having a market and fairs, Burton was
also a clothworking town with fulling mills on the
river, and there was an important alabaster industry
with carvers and painters working alabaster from Tutbury. Although fulling cloth was abandoned from the
mid 17th century, Burton retained a textile trade in the
form of felt- and hat-making, which remained important until the early 19th century. In the late 18th
century the river Trent was harnassed to power
cotton mills, but they ceased to operate in the 1840s.
Important factors in the development of Burton's
economy were the effective navigation of the Trent in
the first decade of the 18th century and its connexion
to the Trent and Mersey canal in the 1770s. Improved
communications stimulated a new metalworking
industry with water-powered forges at Burton and on
the Dove at Stretton, and they also promoted longdistance trade in which brewer-merchants combined
the export of ale and the import of timber. The
opening of a railway line through Burton in 1839
enabled local brewers to break into the export market
of pale ale to India, and their success laid the foundations for Burton's transformation into a predominantly
one-industry town. The overwhelming impact of brewing was moderated by a significant engineering side to
Burton's economy, and that remained important as
brewing declined in the late 20th century. In recent
years Burton has also attracted new businesses, taking
advantage of its position near the intersection of the
A38 and A50, two major roads running respectively
north-south and east-west and with links to the
motorway system.
Figure 3:
Burton from the north in 1779
Visually Burton is outstanding for its late Victorian
town hall and suburban Anglican churches. Parts of the
town centre were built up with breweries in the 19th
century and little remains of earlier buildings, although
a few houses in High Street and Horninglow Street
retain medieval fabric. Two medieval buildings (the
present Abbey inn and Manor House) also survive in
the former monastic precinct. The demolition of many
of the town-centre breweries in the late 20th century
opened up sites for commercial development, notably
shopping centres.
Of Burton's outlying agricultural villages, Branston
was significant for a hunting ground called Sinai park,
where the abbey had a rest-house which survives on a
moated site. During the 19th century Horninglow,
Stapenhill, and Winshill were brought into the municipal borough, chiefly as areas for middle- and working-class housing. All three places were included in the
county borough created in 1901, with Branston and
Stretton remaining outside as their own civil parishes.
After the Second World War large council-house
estates were laid out in Stapenhill and Winshill,
whereas most of the later privately-built housing
estates are in Branston and Stretton.