Armitage-with-Handsacre contains a remarkable variety of historic buildings and structures, from medieval remains and timber-framed houses to places of worship, country houses and canal structures. Explore their stories below, from buildings that have survived for centuries to others that have disappeared from the landscape.
Houses, Farms & Estates
Hawkesyard developed from a medieval manor house into one of the parish’s most important country houses. Rebuilt and enlarged by successive owners, including the Lister and Spode families, it later became a Dominican priory. Its surviving buildings and lost features tell a story extending from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century.
Hawkesyard Summerhouse (the former greenhouse) — Listed as a “summerhouse”, this was actually part of Hawkesyard’s extensive Victorian glasshouse range, built for the cultivation of exotic plants. Later converted into a bath house by the Dominicans, it fell into disrepair before being restored to something close to its original appearance.
Lodge Cottage appears at first to be a picturesque seventeenth-century timber-framed cottage, but hidden within it is a much earlier building. At its core is a tiny one-bay cruck house, probably dating from at least the fifteenth century and perhaps earlier. Over succeeding centuries it was enlarged and transformed as open-hearth living gave way to chimneys, upper floors and additional rooms. Smoke-blackened timbers, a coffin chute and even a possible witch mark survive within the building, making Lodge Cottage an extraordinary record of changing domestic life.
Cruck Cottage on Hood Lane, dating from the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, is one of the oldest surviving dwellings in the parish. Originally a much larger three-bay farmhouse, it was built around massive curved oak cruck frames which carried the roof down towards ground level. The surviving building represents only part of the original house. Its timber frame, wattle-and-daub walls and evidence for an open hall provide an unusually vivid glimpse of how a substantial local farmhouse was constructed and occupied more than five centuries ago.
Dating from the late sixteenth century, Birchen Fields Farmhouse is one of the parish’s surviving vernacular buildings, combining a substantial sandstone ground floor with timber framing above. Its name reaches even further back into the landscape: during the medieval period the site stood at the western edge of the manor’s cultivated land, with birch woods stretching beyond.
Stonehouse Cottages is a much-altered seventeenth-century building whose surviving fabric reveals an earlier house beneath its later appearance. A historic building survey suggests construction around 1620–40, with subsequent alterations including an inserted chimney, subdivision into two cottages and later brick additions.
Dating from about 1630, Clarke Hayes is a timber-framed house whose surviving structure reveals how such buildings were constructed. Its oak frame was prefabricated and individually jointed, while later generations added brick extensions, divided the house into cottages and eventually concealed the timber beneath stucco. By the late twentieth century some of those alterations had caused serious structural problems. A major restoration exposed and repaired the original frame, while discoveries including the former thatched roof and a 30-foot-deep well revealed still more of the building’s history.
More than 400 years old, Church Farmhouse reveals how a timber-framed house could change as successive generations adapted it to their needs. Originally a simple two-storey building with sandstone foundations, it acquired eighteenth-century extensions and once contained an extraordinary stone and rubble chimney breast fifteen feet wide. Later alterations, including major work in 1928 and repairs in the 1970s, have left evidence of more than four centuries of continuous change.
1 Old Road looks as though it has always belonged to Armitage, but this unusual octagonal sandstone building began life elsewhere. Originally an early nineteenth-century game larder at Beaudesert Hall, it was moved to its present site in 1938 by local builder Arthur Wright. Its history also overturns the suggestion that the Grade II listed building was once a lodge associated with an earlier pottery.
Armitage Lodge — Demolished 1975 A substantial Georgian country house and once one of Armitage’s finest residences. Enlarged from an earlier building, it later became a centre of village social life before mining subsidence caused serious structural damage and led to its demolition in 1975.
The Towers — 19th-century country house Was The Towers really built in the 1830s? Its architecture, maps and documentary evidence suggest a more complicated history, followed by Victorian enlargement and the addition of its distinctive water tower. The tower itself was demolished after the Second World War, leaving the house with a very different appearance today.
Churches, Chapels & Memorials
St Magdalene Church The first known church in the parish stood near Handsacre Hall and may have had much earlier origins. Recorded by name in 1386, it later became the chapel of the lords of Handsacre manor before disappearing. This article traces its history, location and the rediscovery of its foundations in 1795.
St John the Baptist Church With origins stretching back to the 12th century, St John the Baptist is one of the oldest surviving buildings in the parish. Explore its medieval fabric, Victorian rebuilding, tower, bells, windows, font and the many stories associated with the parish church.
Built in 1820 as a private Congregational chapel, this Grade II listed building has witnessed two centuries of changing fortunes. Drawing on architectural evidence, historical records and recent conservation work, this article traces its evolution from place of worship to neglected shell, its brief and extraordinary use as an industrial-scale cannabis factory, and its eventual rescue through sympathetic conversion into a family home.
Churchyard Cross The striking cross in St John the Baptist churchyard has a surprisingly complicated history. Medieval carvings from the church’s Norman south doorway were incorporated into a nineteenth-century cross, provoking fierce criticism when the iron framework began to damage them. The present stone cross, commissioned by Josiah Spode, reproduces the earlier design and preserves a remarkable visual link with the medieval church.
War Memorial Dedicated in 1920 to the men of Armitage and Handsacre who died in the First World War, the village war memorial originally stood at Boat House Lane. This article traces its history, the addition of further names after the Second World War, and its eventual move to Millmoor Avenue in 1969.
Transport & Industry
Armitage Tunnel Why did the Trent & Mersey Canal disappear beneath the sandstone ridge at Armitage? Opened in 1777, the tunnel was an unusual feature of James Brindley’s canal and included a towpath through the hill. Later opened out into a cutting, its surviving rock faces still reveal clues to its construction and subsequent history.
Canal Bridges 59 and 60 Built in 1776–77 as part of the Trent & Mersey Canal, these two surviving accommodation bridges preserved existing rights of way across the new waterway. Their brick arches, sandstone coping and surviving alterations provide a glimpse of the canal’s original construction.
Listed Buildings & Scheduled Monuments
Handsacre Hall is the parish’s only Scheduled Monument. In addition, the parish contains 20 nationally listed buildings and structures, all designated Grade II. These range from medieval and early timber-framed buildings to churches, houses, monuments and canal structures.
The nationally protected sites are only part of the parish’s historic environment. The Staffordshire Historic Environment Record contains more than 100 records for Armitage and Handsacre, including buildings, canal structures, industrial sites, archaeological finds and prehistoric features.