Stafford means "
ford" by a
staithe (landing place). The original settlement was on a dry sand and gravel peninsula that provided a strategic crossing point in the marshy valley of the
River Sow, a tributary of the
River Trent. There is still a large area of
marshland north-west of the town, which is subject to flooding and did so in 1947, 2000, 2007, 2019 and 2023.
Stafford is thought to have been founded about AD 700[3] by a
Mercian prince called
Bertelin, who, legend has it, founded a hermitage on a peninsula named Betheney.[4] Until recently it was thought that the remains of a wooden preaching cross from the time had been found under the remains of St
Bertelin's Chapel, next to the later
collegiate Church of St Mary in the town centre. Recent reappraisal of the evidence shows this to be a misinterpretation – it was a tree-trunk coffin placed centrally in the first, timber chapel around the time that
Æthelflæd founded the
burh in 913.[5] It may have been placed there as a commemoration or veneration of St
Bertelin.
Already a centre for delivering grain tribute in the
Early Middle Ages, Stafford was commandeered in July 913 by
Æthelflæd, Lady of Mercia, to construct a
burh there. This
fortification provided an industrial area for centralised production of Roman-style pottery (Stafford Ware),[6] which was supplied to a chain of West Midlands
burhs.
Æthelflæd and her younger brother, King
Edward the Elder of
Wessex, were trying to complete their father King
Alfred the Great's programme of moulding England into a single kingdom. Æthelflæd, a formidable military leader and tactician, sought to protect and extend the northern and western frontiers of her overlordship of
Mercia against the Danish
Vikings by fortifying
burhs, including
Tamworth and Stafford in 913, and
Runcorn on the
River Mersey in 915, while King
Edward the Elder concentrated on the east, wresting
East Anglia and
Essex from the
Danes. Anglo-Saxon women could play powerful roles in society; Æthelflæd's death in 918 effectively ended
Mercia's relative independence.
Edward the Elder of Wessex took over her fortress at Tamworth and accepted submission from all who were living in
Mercia, Danish or English. In late 918
Aelfwynn, Æthelflæd's daughter, was deprived of her authority over Mercia and taken to Wessex. The project of unifying England took another step forward.[7]
Stafford was one of Æthelflæd's military campaign bases. Extensive archaeological investigations and recent re-examination and interpretation show her new burh producing, alongside Stafford Ware, food for her army (butchery, grain processing, baking), coinage and weaponry, but apparently no other crafts and making few imports.[6][8]
In 1069, a rebellion by
Eadric the Wild against the
Norman conquest culminated in the Battle of Stafford. Two years later another rebellion, led by
Edwin, Earl of Mercia, ended in Edwin's assassination and distribution of his lands among the followers of
William the Conqueror.
Robert de Tonei was granted the manor of Bradley and one third of the king's rents in Stafford. The Norman Conquest there was especially brutal, and resulted not only in the imposition of a castle, but in destruction and suppression for about a century of every other activity except intermittent minting of coins.
Stafford Castle, built by the
Normans on a nearby hilltop to the west about 1090, was first made of wood and later rebuilt in stone. It has been rebuilt twice since; the ruins of the 19th-century
Gothic revival castle on the
earthworks incorporate much of the original stonework.
Redevelopment began in the late 12th century. While the church, the main north–south street (Greengate) and routes through the late Saxon industrial quarter to the east remained, the town plan changed in other ways. A
motte was built on the western side of the peninsula, overlooking a ford and facing the site of the main castle of Stafford on the hill at Castle Church, west of the town. Tenements were laid out over the peninsula and trade and crafts flourished until the early 14th century, when a period of upset may have been associated with the
Black Death. This was followed in the mid-16th century by another revival.[6]
In 1206 King
John granted a
Royal Charter creating the
borough of Stafford. It became a medieval market town mainly dealing in cloth and wool. Though a shire town, Stafford required waves of external investment from
Æthelflæd's time to that of Queen
Elizabeth I.[10]
King
Richard II was paraded through the town's streets as a prisoner in 1399, by troops loyal to Henry Bolingbroke (the future
Henry IV).
When
James I visited Stafford, he was said to be so impressed by the Shire Hall and other buildings that he called it "Little London".[3]
In 1658 Stafford elected
John Bradshaw, who had been judge at the trial of King
Charles I, to represent the town in Parliament. During the reign of
Charles II,
William Howard, 1st Viscount Stafford became implicated in the
Popish Plot, in which
Titus Oates whipped up anti-Catholic feeling with claims of a plot to have the king killed. Lord Stafford was among those accused; he was unfortunate to be the first to be tried and was beheaded in 1680. The charge was false and on 4 June 1685, the bill of attainder against him was reversed.[11]
The town was represented in Parliament from 1780 by the playwright
Richard Brinsley Sheridan. During that period, the town's mechanised shoe industry was founded, the best-known factory owner being William Horton.[3] The industry gradually died, the last factory being redeveloped in 2008.
In 1837 the
Grand Junction Railway built a line from
Birmingham to
Warrington to pass through the town and link at Warrington, via another line, with the
Liverpool–
Manchester railway. Birmingham provided the first connection to London. Other lines followed. Stafford became a major junction, which helped to attract other industries.[12] The
Friars' Walk drill hall was completed in 1913, just in time for the
First World War.[13]
On 31 March 2006 the
Queen visited the town for the 800th anniversary civic celebrations.
In 2013 Stafford celebrated its 1,100th anniversary year with a number of history-based exhibitions, while local historian Nick Thomas and writer Roger Butters were set to produce the two-volume A Compleat [sic] History of Stafford.
Stafford Castle was built by the
Normans on the nearby hilltop to the west in about 1090, replacing the post-Conquest fort in the town. It was first made of wood, and later rebuilt of stone. It has been rebuilt twice since, and the ruins of the 19th-century Gothic revival castle crowning the
earthworks incorporate much of the original stonework. The castle has a visitor centre with audio-visual displays and hands-on items. There is also a recreated medieval herb garden. Shakespeare productions take place in the castle grounds each summer. The castle forms a landmark for drivers, as it is visible from the
M6 motorway.
The oldest building now in Stafford is
St Chad's Church, dating back to the 12th century.[17] The main part of the church is richly decorated. Carvings in its archways and on its pillars may have been made by a group of stonemasons from the
Middle East who came to England during the Crusades. Much of the stonework was covered up in the 17th and 18th centuries and the church took on a neo-classical style. In the early
19th-century restoration, work was carried out on the church and the Norman decoration rediscovered. The church hosts "Timewalk", a computer-generated display that relates the journey of history and mystery within the walls of the church.
St Mary's, the collegiate church formerly linked to St Bertelin's chapel, was rebuilt in the early 13th century on a
cruciform plan, with an
aislednave and
chancel typical of the period. It has an impressive octagonal tower, once topped by a tall steeple, which can be picked out in Gough's plan shown above. The church was effectively two churches in one, divided by a screen, with the parish using the nave and the collegiate canons the chancel. St Mary's was restored in 1842 by
Giles Gilbert Scott.[18]
The
Shire Hall was built in 1798 as a court house and office of the Mayor and Clerk of Stafford.[19] The Shire Hall used to be the town's court house, and is a Grade II
listed building. In recent times, the building was used as an art gallery and library, before a new facility was built within the new council buildings, The Market Square has recently gone under a £20 million redevelopment which is due to be completed by December 2023.
Green Hall on Lichfield Road is a Grade II listed manor house (now apartments), originally built about 1810 as Forebridge Hall, known after 1880 as Green Hall. It was previously used as a girls' school and as council offices.[20]
The
Shugborough Hall country estate is 4 miles (6.4 km) out of town. It once belonged to the
Earls of Lichfield and is now owned by the
National Trust. The 19th-century
Sandon Hall is 5 miles (8.0 km) north-east of Stafford. It is set in 400 acres (1.6 km2) of parkland, as the seat of the
Earl of Harrowby. Weston Hall stands 5 miles (8.0 km) east of Stafford, in the
Trent valley with a large park and was once part of the
Chartley estate. It is thought that the main part of the hall was built about 1550 as a small dower house, but the architectural evidence suggests it is
Jacobean. Weston Hall was extended in 1660 into a three-gabled structure with high-pitched roofs.[21]
Culture
Stafford Gatehouse Theatre is the town's main entertainment and cultural venue. Its Met Studio is a dedicated to stand-up comedy and alternative live music. There is an art gallery in the Shire Hall. Staffordshire County Showground, just outside the town, holds many national and local events. The annual
Shakespeare Festival at Stafford Castle has attracted many notable people, including
Frank Sidebottom and
Ann Widdecombe.
Victoria Park, opened in 1908, is a 13-acre (53 ha)
Edwardian riverside park with a play park, bowling green, bird cages and greenhouses. It has a children's play area, a sand-and-water-jet area replacing an open-air paddling pool, and a bmx/skateboard area. Stafford also has a 9-hole
golf course near the town centre.
Recent developments on Riverside allowed for an expansion of the town, notably with a new Odeon cinema to replace the ageing one at the end of the high street. Stafford Film Theatre is based at the Gatehouse Theatre and shows independent and alternative films. There is a
tenpin bowling alley at Greyfriars Place. The new Stafford Leisure Centre opened in 2008 on Lammascote Road.
Night life consists of smaller bar and club venues such as Casa, the Grapes,
the Picture House, neighbouring night clubs Couture and Poptastic, Hogarths, and rock gigs at the live music venue Redrum. Most of these are in walking distance of each other. There is a big student patronage, with coaches bringing them from
Stoke-on-Trent,
Cannock, and
Wolverhampton.
A new shopping centre was completed in 2017, housing major stores and a number of restaurants, The Guildhall shopping centre is undergoing major redevelopment as accommodation and now only supports 5 shops
Media
Newspapers
Stafford is covered by the Express and Star and Staffordshire Newsletter,[22] neither of which have offices in the town.
In terms of BBC Local Radio, Stafford is covered by
BBC Radio Stoke, with a transmitter based on top of the County Education building.[23] In commercial radio, Stafford is covered by
Greatest Hits Radio programming from London, Manchester or Birmingham for most of the day), broadcasting on 96.1 FM from a transmitter at
Pye Green BT Tower, near Hednesford.
Stafford FM is a volunteer run community radio station which attracts a very small audience in the town.
Climate
Like most of the
British Isles, Stafford has a
maritime climate with cool summers and mild winters. The nearest Met Office weather station is at
Penkridge, about 5 miles to the south.
Stafford has a history of shoemaking as far back as 1476, when it was a cottage industry,[25] but a manufacturing process was introduced in the 1700s.[25] William Horton founded a business in 1767 that became the largest shoe company in Stafford, selling worldwide. He had several government contracts through the town's
Member of Parliament (MP), the playwright
Richard Brinsley Sheridan. The shoe industry gradually died out in the late 20th century, with Lotus Shoes the last manufacturer.[26] Its factory in Sandon Road was demolished in 2001 and replaced by housing.
A locomotive firm,
WG Bagnall, was set up in 1875 to manufacture steam engines for the
London, Midland & Scottish Railway and the
Great Western Railway. Between 1875 and 1962, the Castle Engine Works in Castle Town produced 1,660 locomotives, including steam, diesel and electric. It was taken over in 1962 by
English Electric, which also bought the Stafford-based engine manufacturer
WH Dorman & Company. This had merged with Bagnall's by then.
Since 1903, a major industrial activity has been heavy
electrical engineering, particularly
power stationtransformers. The works have been successively owned by
Siemens,
English Electric,
GEC and
GEC Alsthom. Alstom T&D was sold in 2004 to
Areva. At the end of 2009, Areva T&D was split between former owners Alstom and
Schneider Electric. At the end of 2015, the works were acquired by General Electric consolidating Stafford as the Centre of Excellence for HVDC, AC Substations and Converter Transformers. Each transformer weighs several hundred tons and a
road train is used for transport. In the 1968
Hixon rail crash, one such road train was struck by an express train on a
level crossing.
Private service industries based in Stafford include
TopCashback. The public sector provides much local employment, with Staffordshire County Council, Stafford Borough Council and
Staffordshire Police all headquartered in the town.
Stafford Prison,
County Hospital and
Beacon Barracks are other sources of public-sector employment.
The town was home to the
computer science and
IT campus of
Staffordshire University, along with Beaconside campus, which housed the Faculty of Computing Engineering and Technology and part of the Business School. These have all been transferred to Stoke-on-Trent. The only block of Stafford University left in use is the School of Health in Blackheath Lane, which teaches medical
nursing. The main Stoke campus lies about 18 miles (30 km) to the north.
The Guildhall Shopping Centre in the centre of town offers over 40 retail outlets, several empty at present. The three superstores around the main town centre were joined by two others in 2018.
Demographics
At the
2021 census there were 70,145 residents in Stafford, up from 68,472, in the 2011 census, and 62,440 in the 2001 census.[1]
In terms of religion, 51.8% of Stafford residents identified as
Christian, 42.9% said they had
no religion, 1.7% were
Muslim, 1.5% were
Hindu, 0.8% were
Sikh, 0.6% were
Buddhists, and 0.6% were from another religion.[1]
Avanti West Coast services to
London Euston and
Liverpool Lime Street operate hourly in each direction seven days a week. In December 2008,
London Midland introduced a service stopping at Stafford on the
Crewe to London Euston route and a Birmingham New Street–Liverpool Lime Street service that departs from Stafford normally every 30 mins on weekdays. These are now operated by
West Midlands Trains. At least one train a day in each direction between Birmingham New Street and Crewe is operated by
Transport for Wales, usually the first and last of the day.
Roads
Junctions 13 (Stafford South & Central) and 14 (Stafford North) of the
M6 motorway provide access to the town, so that Birmingham and Manchester are easily reached. The
A34 runs through the town centre and links with Stone and Stoke-on-Trent to the north and to the West Midlands conurbation to the south including Birmingham,
Walsall and Wolverhampton. The
A518 road connects Stafford with Telford to the south-west and
Uttoxeter to the north-east. This is the main route to the theme park at
Alton Towers. The
A449 runs south from the town centre to the nearby town of
Penkridge and to
Wolverhampton. Finally, the
A513 runs east from Stafford to the local towns of
Rugeley and
Lichfield.
Staffordshire County Council headquarters are in central Stafford. Most staff in the town work in the Staffordshire Place development, which opened in 2011.[27] The shift of administrative staff to Staffordshire Place meant conversion of most offices into private homes,[28] but the County Council still meets at
County Buildings in Martin St.[29]
For much of the 20th century the local
municipal council was based at the
Borough Hall in Eastgate Street.[30] Following local government reorganisation in 1974, a modern Civic Centre was built for the enlarged
Stafford Borough Council in Riverside and completed in 1978.[15][31]
The town's main library, once in the Shire Hall, it has moved to the ground floor of 1 Staffordshire Place,[32] with smaller libraries in Rising Brook, Baswich and Holmcroft. The
William Salt Library in the town centre has a large collection of printed books, pamphlets, manuscripts, drawings, watercolours and transcripts built up by
William Salt.
Emergency services
County Hospital provides a range of non-specialist medical and surgical services. Its
accident and emergency unit is the only such facility in the town. In March 2009, the hospital was involved in
a scandal after the release of a
Healthcare Commission report that detailed severe failings.[33][34][35] St George's Hospital, part of the South Staffordshire and Shropshire Health Care Trust, is a combination of two historical hospitals: the Kingsmead (previously an elderly care facility) and
St George's psychiatric hospital. It provides mental health services, including a
psychiatric intensive care unit, secure units, an
eating disorder unit, an EMI unit for the elderly and mentally frail, drug and alcohol addiction services, and open wards. There is an outpatient facility, where the town's
Alcoholics Anonymous also meets. Rowley Hall Hospital in Rowley Park is private and run by Ramsay Healthcare, but offers some NHS treatment.[36] The town receives primary health care from the South Staffordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG).
Stafford Crown Court and Stafford County Court share a building in the town centre. There was a magistrates' court in nearby South Walls, but it closed in 2016.[37] The
Shire Hall, completed in 1798, used to be a courthouse but is now an art gallery.
Stafford Prison is a
Category C men's
prison, operated by
HM Prison Service. It holds a number of vulnerable prisoners, mainly sex offenders. It was built on its current site in 1794 and has been in almost continuous use, except between 1916 and 1940.
MoD Stafford
MoD Stafford is located on Beaconside. Originally
RAF Stafford, the base was a non-flying
Royal Air Force station. It was redesignated MoD Stafford in March 2006, an event marked by a fly-past and a flag-lowering ceremony. For many years, the site employed civilians and military personnel, but it was handed over by the Royal Air Force under the current policy of defence strategy and streamlining. A small Tactical Supply Wing (TSW) still operates from the base, which now houses two Royal Signals units and an
RAF Regiment contingent alongside Tactical Supply Wing.
Staffordshire University had a large campus in the east of the town which focused heavily on computing, engineering and media technologies (film, music and computer games). It also ran teacher-training courses. The university had two halls of residence opposite the campus, the smaller Yarlet with 51 rooms and the larger Stafford Court with 554 Rooms. Stafford Court was divided into 13 "houses" named after local villages. This part of the campus closed in 2016, with the majority of facilities relocating to its new campus in
Stoke-on-Trent. The University retains a significant presence at its Blackheath Lane campus to cater for Health related courses, such as Nursing and Paramedics.
The town has two
rugby union clubs,[57] though again they do not play at a high level.
There is a local hockey club[58] with eight adult teams.
Stafford Post Office Rifle and Pistol Club is a Home Office approved rifle club founded in 1956.[59] It has a 25-yard indoor range attached to the Stafford Post Office Social Club. In addition to short-range indoor shooting facilities, the club has a number of outdoor ranges, including Kingsbury, Sennybridge and Thorpe, for larger-calibre long-range shooting.
Stafford Cricket and Hockey Club, an
ECB Clubmark Accredited Club founded in 1864, is almost certainly the town's oldest sports club. It appears to have played originally at the Lammascotes, before being offered a field at the Hough (Lichfield Road/GEC site) in 1899, which belonged to the grammar school. In 1984 the club made a move to Riverway in 1984, as the Hough came under the ownership of GEC. It currently owns 11 acres (4 ha) at Riverway and hosts numerous sports: two cricket pitches in summer and football, mini-football, rugby and hockey facilities in winter. In 1999 it won a £200,000 lottery grant towards a new pavilion completed in 2000, with six changing rooms and a function room. The cricket section welcomes players of all abilities.[60] Four senior sides play on Saturdays. The first and second elevens play in the
North Staffordshire and South Cheshire League.[61] The third and fourth elevens play in the Stone and District Cricket League.[62] There is also a senior team that plays in the Lichfield Sunday League. The five junior sides are for under 9s, under 11s, under 13s, under 15s and under 17s.
In December 2018, a
parkrun (free weekly timed 5k run/walk) was launched in Stafford on the Isabel Trail, a public foot/cycle path that follows part of the former course of the Stafford–Uttoxeter railway. The run/walk takes place on Saturday mornings at 09:00am, starting at the southern end of the Isabel Trail by Sainsbury's supermarket.[63]
The Stafford
knot, sometimes Staffordshire knot, is a distinctive three-looped tie that is the traditional symbol of the county and county town, used on buildings, logos and coats of arms. It also gives its name to a pub.[64][65][66][67]
In the early 1900s, the village of
Great Haywood near Stafford became home to the famous The Lord of the Rings author
J. R. R. Tolkien and his wife, Edith, in her cottage in the village during the winter of 1916. Surrounding areas were said to have inspired some of his early works.
The Scottish poet, playwright and freelancer
Carol Ann Duffy, though born in
Glasgow, grew up in Stafford and attended
Stafford Girls' High School. She was awarded an
OBE in 1995, and a
CBE in 2002. Many of her poems describe experiences and places in Stafford. She was the
Poet laureate from 2009 to 2019, and now lives in
Manchester.
Thomas Maxfield (real name Macclesfield) (c. 1590–1616), Roman Catholic priest and a Catholic martyr, beatified in 1929, was born in
Stafford gaol.[75]
Lieutenant General
Sir William Congreve, 1st Baronet (1742 in Stafford – 1814), a British military officer who improved artillery strength through gunpowder experiments
James Oatley, Sr. (c. 1769 in Stafford – 1839), an Australian watch and clock maker[77] and one-time convict. Oatley, aged 44, was sentenced to penal transportation for life for stealing shirts and bedding. He had an earlier conviction for stealing a ton of cheese.
James Trubshaw (1777 in Colwich – 1853) English builder, architect and civil engineer[78]
William Palmer (1824 in Rugeley – 1856 in Stafford Prison) an English doctor found guilty in 1855 of the murder by poisoning of his friend John Cook and executed by
George Smith in public by hanging[81]
Francis Webb (1836 in Tixall – 1906) British engineer responsible for the design and manufacture of locomotives for the London and North Western Railway (LNWR)[82]
Whitaker Wright (1846 in Stafford – 1904) company promoter and swindler, who committed suicide at the
Royal Courts of Justice in London immediately after his conviction for fraud.[84]
Ernest Shears (1849–1917 in Stafford), an Anglican clergyman in South Africa, retired to Stafford.[85]
Alice Hawkins (1863 in Stafford – 1946) a leading English suffragette among the boot and shoe machinists of Leicester
Leanne May Brown 1867–1932 Famous women's activist who chained herself to the tower bridge in London
20th c.
In birth order:
G. Godfrey Phillips CBE (1900–1965) was the Town Clerk from 1932 to 1934. He then became secretary and later Commissioner General of the Shanghai Municipal Council.[86]
Mike Dilger (born 1966) ecologist, ornithologist and TV presenter[94]
Sir
Jonathan Ive,
KBE (born 1967),
iPhone designer,[95] went to school at Stafford Walton High School and now resides in San Francisco, California.
Hannah Maybank (born in Stafford 1974) artist[96] best known for the ripped and distressed surfaces of her three-dimensional paintings in acrylic.
Richard Stone (born 1976) business person[97] founded PR consultancy Stone Junction and lobbied for business to increase salaries during the 2022/3 economic crisis, and provide paid leave to vote.
Music, acting and writing
Rodney Milnes OBE (1936–2015) music critic, translator and broadcaster, with an interest in opera[98]
Fran Healy (born in Stafford 1973) singer [111] in
Travis moved to Scotland when very young.
Kieron Gillen, (born 1975) British computer games and music journalist and comic book author. He went to Blessed William Howard Catholic High School.[112][113]
Tom Vaughan (born in Stafford 1985) television actor, played the part of
Spike in Channel 4 series
Hollyoaks in 2007.[114]
Walter Twigg (1883 in Weeping Cross – 1963) field hockey player and cricketer[118]
Harry Hutsby (1886 in Stafford – 1971) joined
Stoke F.C. in 1908 from local side Stafford Wednesday
Bill Aston (1900 in Hopton – 1974) racing driver,[119] participated in three World Championship Grands Prix
Joe Hulme (1904–1991) English footballer and cricketer, played 333 times for
Arsenal F.C. and 225 times for Middlesex as an aggressive middle-order batsman and medium-fast bowler.[120]
Walter Robins (1906–1968) cricketer and footballer. He was one of Wisden's Cricketers of the Year in 1930.[121]
Phil Robinson (born 1967) Recruitment Manager at Manchester City, former footballer, with 567 pro appearances mainly for Notts County, Huddersfield Town, Stoke City, Hereford United and Stafford Rangers.[124]
Chris Birchall (born 1984), footballer, scored 21 goals in 322 appearances in a 16-year professional career, and scored four goals in 43 international matches,[125]
Christopher Paget (born 1987), right-handed batsman and right-arm offbreak bowler, plays for Derbyshire.[126]
Joe Leach (born 1990) cricketer, is a right-handed batsman who bowls right-arm fast-medium for Worcestershire, as a first-team regular in 2015 and county captain in 2016.[127]
Richard Stanford (1382–1402) politician, MP for Stafford in May 1382, 1386, September 1388, 1391, 1399 and 1402[130]
Matthew Cradock (1584–1636) wool merchant, elected MP for Stafford in 1621, re-elected in 1624, 1625 and 1628. He sat until 1629, when King Charles dispensed with Parliament for eleven years.[131]
Sir Edward Leigh (1602–1671) an English lay writer on religious topics and MP for Stafford 1645 to 1648.[132]
An estate built on the wetlands off Newport Road in the early 1990s. Roads are named after then famous athletes (Gunnell Close, Christie Drive etc.)
Castletown
Estate of terraced cottages built in the 1830s and 1840s for an influx of railway workers. Its former church, St Thomas's, was demolished in the 1970s and replaced by a new one in Doxey. The offices of Staffordshire Newsletter now occupy the site.
The Crossings
An estate built on the site of Stychfields in the grounds of the Alstom factory. It also includes a retail park.
A council estate between Wolverhampton Road and Newport Road. The first houses were built about 1955 and many others ("Highfields No. 2 estate" in 1963–1964. West Way is its longest street. Many streets added in the 1960s are named after poets and playwrights (Shakespeare Road, Masefield Drive, Coleridge Drive, Keats Avenue, Tennyson Road, Binyon Court, etc.) Much of the original estate was built on Preston's Farm land. Two tower blocks stood in Milton Grove: Brooke Court, mainly used as student housing, was demolished in 1998 for a housing development. Binyon Court was renovated and renamed the Keep.
Moss Pit is in southern Stafford, approximately one mile from Junction 13 of the
M6 motorway; areas include the Pippins, the Chestnuts and Scholar's Gate.
Parkside
A housing estate in the north of the town built in the 1970s. It has two entrances from the A513 Beaconside Road and access to three parks, a green and Stafford Common. It has a primary school (Parkside Primary School) and
Sir Graham Balfour School, rebuilt in 2001. Some school grounds were sold off for the adjacent Oaks housing estate. There is a precinct of shops and a bus terminus.
Queensville
Rising Brook
Rickerscote
Rickerscote had a lane running from the Silkmore estate towards the area of the bridge to Argos. The area is known to many as the village and has a shop. Its large area of grassland is known as the Green.
Other local areas are the Conker Tree, Boulton's Farm, Devil's Triangle and the Metal Bridge.
Rowley Park
Silkmore
Silkmore, between Rickerscote and Meadowcroft, by the Rising Brook. It has a primary school and a selection of shops. It has seen a development programme to upgrade the exteriors of the housing.
An area of Silkmore near the old Southend Club was subject to flooding. It has been replaced with new homes. Other parts such as Pioneer, the Garage and Finney's Farm have been replaced by homes or the Co-op.
St. George's
A development close to St George's Hospital along St George's Parkway, with various modern buildings, including a modern interpretation of a Georgian crescent. Work has begun on restoring the hospital building, disused since 1995, as luxury flats.
An estate off the A34 built on the site of the old Sir Graham Balfour School in the extreme north of Stafford. Coppice Way, so named after the adjacent Coppice is located where the environmental science department of the school used to be. Old School Drive and Balfour Way are located on the site of the old school's Balfour and Trinity buildings used to be.
To the south of Stafford bordering Milford. Walton High School is specialist science school.
Weeping Cross
An estate on the east side of Stafford, off Radford Bank, towards Rugeley and Cannock. It contains the Leasowes Primary and St Anne's Catholic Primary schools.
Western Downs
This borders Highfields and the M6 motorway. A green area with two football pitches and a basketball court known as Bottom Pitches can be found, along with Rainbow Park in Clarendon Drive and Dome Park in Torridge Drive.
Wildwood
A large estate with a ring road that joins the
A34 road. It was built around the 1970s and housed many of the Stafford police force at its HQ was on the opposite side of the A34.
^Walsh, Nick Paton (19 March 2000).
"Midlands Ripper unmasked". The Guardian.
Archived from the original on 11 November 2020. Retrieved 19 February 2022.