Local Area Info
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Local Area Info |
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Welcome to the Staffordshire Moorlands in the Peak District. Spectacular scenery, a tranquil atmosphere and lively events, are all waiting here to invigorate your senses! Visit our charming market towns, and pretty villages or discover rugged rocks, roving rivers, lovely lakes and beautiful countryside. There are attractions for everyone from Britain's favourite theme park, Alton Towers, to steam railways, animal parks and gardens to stir the imagination. Plus plenty of exhilarating activities, walking, cycling, horse riding and rock climbing, to name but a few. Staffordshire Moorlands has it all! Only a short distance away you'll find the famous scenery and historic houses of the Peak District. The factory shops and visitor centres of the home of world class ceramics, the Potteries, are also on our doorstep. You'll find Leisure Centres, with state of the art fitness suites, in each of the three main market towns as well as country and formal parks and plenty of open space to relax. In short the Staffordshire Moorlands offers visitors a world of possibilities...
The Brocklehursts had an adventurous history, and one of them accompanied Shackleton to the Antarctic. On the edge above Swythamley there is a famous landmark - the Hanging Stone (see photo left) - with a fine view over the surrounding countryside and bearing a plaque to Colonel Brocklehurst, who was killed in Burma in 1942. A game warden in the Sudan, he started a private zoo at Swythamley when he returned to Britain, and during the Second World War the animals were released into the countryside because there was no food for them. The wallabies from the zoo survived and bred around the Roaches until the late 1990s, and sightings of them have surprised many walkers and climbers over the years. Swythamley has been convincingly identified as the castle of the Green Knight of the classic medieval poem "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" and nearby Lud's Church as the knight's 'Green Chapel'. This probably means that the unknown author was connected with Dieulacres Abbey in some way.
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Swythamley
is an isolated farming community situated close to the River Dane.
Swythamley lies on the Staffordshire side of the river. Swythamley Hall
stands in a fine park and was originally a mediaeval hunting lodge belonging to
the Abbey of Dieulacres. The hall was granted to the Traffords by Henry
VIII in 1540 and became their home and that of their successors, the
Brocklehursts. Unfortunately the original house burned down in 1813, so the
current building is a rebuilding dating from then.