England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Armitage St John the Baptist

The Parish

The parish of Armitage lies in eastern central Staffordshire roughly 5 miles north of the city of Lichfield. Armitage sits on the A513 road which links Rugeley with Tamworth. There were originally 2 distinct villages within the parish, Armitage, itself, sits on the southern banks of the River Trent with properties either side of the A513, to the east there was a separate village of Handacre which is a crossroads settlement formed where the A513 is crossed by the B5014 which runs northwards to Abbots Bromley, Handsacre sits a little further from the Trent and on the banks of the Trent & Mersey Canal. Today the two have coalesced into a single town stretching for well over a mile along the A513 and parallel to both Trent & canal. Prior to the early 18th century Armitage was a farming community with early gazetteers estimating almost equal proportions to arable and pastoral methods. There was a small brick-making industry exploiting the clays associated with the Trent flood-plain. From the start of the Regency period in 1810 Armitage has become associated with a different usage of that clay, the manufacture of sanitary ceramic ware initially as Armitage Shanks and nowadays their successors Ideal Standard. Of course pottery in all its forms is intrinsically associated with the county but here a niche product brought prosperity to the small town. Modern developments arrived in abundance enabling easy transportation of both raw material and finished products, the Trent & Mersey canal linking those two rivers and also to the wider canal network came first, today it is more used for leisure boating than industrial goods transportation. The railway line from London to the North West & Glasgow also passes through Armitage although it no longer holds a station. All of this industry is balanced by the peaceful surroundings of Hawkshead Park to the west where once a Dominican Priory stood, later an 18th century house and parkland and now adorned with the town's golf course. Armitage sits on the mighty Trent which drains the parish initially eastwards, passing through Nottingham and Newark before turning northward to meet the Yorkshire Dales rivers for the final exit to the North Sea through the Humber Estuary. Armitage is sited at around 70 metres at the church rising to 90 metres south of the A513, to the southwest lies Cannock Chase which is topped off with an ancient ring-fort standing at 238 metres. Armitage parish covered just over 1,900 acres, smaller than many around it, that acreage nevertheless would have supported a population of close to 950 parishioners. Armitage is not mentioned in Domesday Book.

The Church

St John's church sits nest to the Trent & Mersey Canal at the northern end of Church Lane. It stands on a little knoll overlooking the canal, the railway & the Trent all in close association. Whilst the church is relatively modern with most fabric dating from at least the 17th century, there are a few tentative fragments remaining from a much older building which once stood here. Traces of 12th century Norman work remain in the southern doorway where jamb stones are believed to date back to that early time. The font is also a splendid piece of 12th century carving . Other than these tantalising fragments all medieval work remaining is questionable as to whether it has been restored or even rebuilt in kind. The chancel was clearly early 14th century and Decorated in style before rebuilding in 1847, both nave and aisles are neo-Norman in style and may well have been genuine 12th century at one time until extensively rebuilt in the 1840s. The western tower does at least have some claim to be older with a documented date of 1632 it is nevertheless from the Stuart era rather than the medieval. The final work of the middle Victorian era was that of 1852 which constructed the northern arcade and chapel to house an organ transferred from Lichfield Cathedral. Church Lane performs a sharp right-angled bend just before the churchyard is reached, that eastern run has ample on-verge parking. Whilst much of the churchyard is unobstructed the views of the western tower are restricted by close set adjacent buildings otherwise most angles from the favoured south are available for the photographer.