19th February 1993 SN
PAST TIMES with John Darlington
This is the second in a monthly series of articles by John Darlington, Stafford Borough Council archaeologist, in which he examines some of the most interesting archaeological sites and monuments of mid-Staffordshire.
IF you drive up the narrow lane leading off the A51 at Sandon, NE of Stafford and head towards All Saints Church you will quickly find yourself transported away from the hubbub of the 20th Century back over 600 years. For in this quiet backwater can be found wonderfully preserved evidence of the medieval landscape.
Records show that there were once two villages at Sandon: Great and Little Sandon. Today only one survives (Little Sandon) a mile from the church on either side of the A51. Great Sandon, however, is first recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086.
The book refers to Sandon, or Scandone, being a part of the lands held by the Saxon Earl Algar of Mercia before the Norman Conquest in 1066. By 1086 at least 24 villagers lived there, ploughing the land and grazing their sheep on the hills.
Tax returns show the village to be one of the more prosperous within the area. Today nothing remains of that thriving community. However the fields around Sandon church show the distinctive signs of a deserted medieval village. The ‘lumps and bumps’ within the area are the tell-tale evidence for the roads, house-platforms, rubbish tips and buildings of people who lived many centuries ago. It is still possible to walk up the main street and imagine the timber houses with their wattle and daub walls, the vegetable patches and animal byres belonging to the villagers. The village was finally abandoned in the 18thCentury.
The focal point would have been the church. Inside All Saints, first constructed in the Norman period, is the tomb of Sampson Erdeswick. Erdeswick, the author of one of the first histories of the County, erected the tomb two years before his death in 1603.
If you continue along the footpath beyond the church you will pass the medieval moated site of Sandon Old Hall. Nothing remains of the original building but it is illustrated by Dr Robert Plot in his ‘Natural History of Staffordshire’ (c.1680). The Erdeswick family acquired the moated mansion in 1338, and many of them are, like Sampson, buried in the church.
Reach PLC. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD
