The long view
It is not known how long Cannock Wood has existed but it is recorded that in 1666 it was a hamlet of eighteen houses and all householders were considered too poor to pay the Hearth Tax. A description of Cannock Wood in 1851 states there were ‘a few good farms and 275 inhabitants’ with ‘a large proportion of the open heath, where there are a number of cottages with small plots of garden ground attached to them’.
There are several suggestions as to how the village got its name – one of which surmises that “Cannock Wood” means the “wood of the Canks (or Cangi), a tribe who occupied Cannock Chase at the time of the Roman invasion. Another suggestion is that the name is taken from the word “knock”, an old Irish word meaning hill. It has also been mooted that “Cannock” comes from two Anglo Saxon words meaning “powerful oak”, possibly a reference to the tree which was once so numerous on the Chase. Yet another suggests that “Cannock Wood” was originally “Canutes Wood”. Perhaps we will never know!
Castle Ring is an Iron Age hill fort, the best preserved in Staffordshire; it is a listed Ancient Monument, owned by Cannock Chase District Council. The site is believed to have been occupied between 500BC and 43 AD, and is one of the earliest pieces of evidence of settlement in the Cannock area.
In medieval times Cannock Chase was in possession of the King and formed part of the Royal Hunting Ground, later passing to the Bishop of Coventry & Lichfield. This would have resulted in retention of a basic open landscape. The remnants of a medieval hunting lodge can just be made out on the surface in the northern quarter of the inner enclosure of the monument.
In the mid 16th century, following the dissolution of the monasteries, Henry VIII confiscated the lands in the manor belonging to the Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield and gave them to Sir William Paget. Under his control, the coal and iron resources of Cannock Chase were exploited. The open wooded landscape of the hunting forest was utilised for charcoal making and the estate prospered maintaining an open landscape through heavy grazing.
The Cannock Chase forests that we see today were largely created after 1919 to provide a strategic reserve of timber following the First World War. It is the establishment of forestry that has impacted most on Castle Ring. It is said that, before the growth of all the trees on the Chase, it was possible to see seven counties of England and three of Wales. It was also said that with a good pair of binoculars one could see ships on the Mersey but this may well be wishful thinking. There are still fine views to the northeast over Rugeley and the valley of the River Trent.
Red Moor
King Stephen gave an area of land at ‘Radmore’ (now Red Moor) to two hermits, who with others founded the abbey in 1141. By June 1155 the monks had exchanged the land for other land at Stoneleigh in Warwickshire and by Michaelmas of that year the land was once again in the hands of the king. This has been linked with the medieval moated site and bloomery at Courtbank Covert.
Chestall Hall
The Victoria County History of Staffordshire, 1959, tells the history of Chestall Hall, which is a private residence. 'A house at Chestall (or Cheshall) to the east of Castle Ring seems to have been held by Simon de Rugeley of Hawkesyard (in Armitage parish) in 1333 and by James de Rugeley in 1370. A descendant sold the house in 1562. Chestall was mentioned in 1595 as on of the bounds of the manor of Cannock, and Chestall Hall in Cannock Wood was mentioned in 1640. By the end of the 18th century the farmhouse called Chestall was owned by the Earl of Uxbridge and between at least 1834 to 1892 was occupied by the members of the Darling family, who were land agents to the Marquess of Anglesey. The next tenant was John Reid Walker followed by Arthur Chetwynd. In 1938 the house was sold by the 6th Marquess of Anglesey to Charles Wootton.
The house, which has an 18th century farmhouse as its core, was much enlarged in the middle of the 19th century and is now a red-brick mansion with stone dressings in the Tudor style.'
It was Charles Wootton who gave land to the village on which to build a village hall on which the Village Hall now stands.
A subsequent owner was Fred Pritchard, a prominent property developer, who in 2003 was the first person through the toll booths on the newly built M6 Toll road in his Aston Martin and flying the Union Jack, when the toll charge was £3.
Coal mining
The predominant industry in the Cannock Wood area was coal mining and it is mentioned in historical records that there were three colliers of Cannock Wood in 1601. In 1688 Lord Paget granted a lease of his mines at Cannock Wood, ‘Newhay’ and elsewhere in the vicinity. There were pits on land a little to the north west of New Hayes on the site of the old Cannock Wood Colliery in 1775 and in 1820 a colliery called Park Colliery was noted on the site. In 1865 and 1874 the Cannock & Rugeley Collieries Company sank two shafts at Cannock Wood Colliery, just outside the boundary of Cannock Wood parish, which produced what was termed as the best coal in the Midlands. The pit closed in 1973, ending two centuries during which almost every household had one or more men employed in the industry.
The Parish Council maintains a list of non-designated heritage assets which can be downloaded from the planning page of this website.
