Tutbury is a small town and civil parishinStaffordshire, England. It is 4 miles (6.4 km) north of Burton upon Trent and 20 miles (32 km) south of the Peak District. The town has a population of about 3,076 residents. It adjoins Hatton to the north on the Staffordshire–Derbyshire border.
Tutbury is surrounded by the agricultural countryside of both Staffordshire and Derbyshire. The site has been inhabited for over 3,000 years, with Iron Age defensive ditches encircling the main defensive hill, upon which now stand the ruins of the Norman castle. These ditches can be seen most clearly at the Park Pale and at the top of the steep hills behind Park Lane.
The name Tutbury probably derives from a Scandinavian settler and subsequent chief of the hill-fort, Totta, bury being a corruption of burh the Anglo-Saxon name for 'fortified place'.
Tutbury CastleWest front of St Mary's Church (circa 1160)
Tutbury Castle became the headquarters of Henry de Ferrers and was the centre of the wapentake of Appletree, which included Duffield Frith. With his wife Bertha, he endowed Tutbury Priory with two manors in about 1080. It would seem that Tutbury at that time was a dependency of the Norman abbey of St Pierre‑sur‑Dives.[1]St Mary's Church, Tutbury was used by the local population as well as the priory, and it possibly predates the priory itself. Quarries near Tutbury once produced Nottingham alabaster, used for monumental carvings, and the priory church has a door with an alabaster arch (circa 1160) that is the only such arch known in the country.[2]
One of the Royal Studs was established in the area round the castle by Henry VIII but had to be abandoned after the Civil War.[3]Mary, Queen of Scots, was imprisoned in Tutbury Castle in 1569.[4]
Until the 18th century, Tutbury was the site of an annual Court of Minstrels.[5] There was even a "King of the Minstrels" and an annual Tutbury bull run.
There are some fine Georgian and Regency buildings and the half-timbered Dog and Partridge Hotel. There are antique and craft shops in the village, some of which have been run by the same families for many years.
Until 2006, Tutbury Crystal, a manufacturer of high-quality cut glass products, was based in the village. However, production was transferred to Stoke-on-Trent as the existing factory was very old and was thought to be too small for the modern company's requirements. The old factory was demolished and flats were built on the site, but a factory shop still operates in the village. Despite this, the tourism trade survives thanks to the long history of the church and castle.
The Natural History of Tutbury, describing the fauna and flora of the district surrounding Tutbury and Burton on Trent, by Sir Oswald Mosley and Edwin Brown, was published in 1863.[7]
Ann Moore (1761–1813), the notorious "fasting-woman of Tutbury", claimed to have eaten nothing at all from 1807 to 1813, but her claims were eventually shown to be a hoax.
Benjamin Brook (1776–1848), an English nonconformist minister and religious historian, was the first pastor of the congregational church at Tutbury in 1801.
Walter Lyon (1841–1918), an English cricketer who played first-class cricket for Cambridge University between 1861 and 1863, moved to Tutbury in 1865 with his younger brother Charles to take over the cotton mill, and died in Tutbury.
John Henry Davies (c. 1864 in Tutbury – 1927), a wealthy British brewery owner who took over Manchester United F.C., then called Newton Heath, in 1902, was born in Tutbury.
Thomas Richardson (1865–1923), a cricketer who played first-class cricket for Derbyshire in 1895, was born and died in Tutbury.
George Harris (born 1877), an English footballer who played 71 professional games, became the landlord of a public house at Tutbury on retirement.
Air Vice Marshal William Staton, CB, DSO & Bar, MC, DFC & Bar (1898–1983), a British airman in World War I and later Japanese PoW in World War II and senior RAF officer, was born in Tutbury.
Joseph Nelis (1917–1994), Belgian footballer, was born in Tutbury.
^Marios Costambeys, 'Ferrers, Henry de (d. 1093x1 100)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, May 2007 [ 61, accessed 28 Oct 2007]
^Weir, Alison (2008) [2003]. Mary, Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley. London, England: Random House. p. 484. ISBN978-0-09-952707-7.
^Mosley, Oswald, Sir. History of the Castle, Priory and Town of Tutbury, in the county of Stafford.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
