GREAT HAYWOOD is a village pleasantly situated on the road from Rugeley to Stoke, with a station on the North Staffordshire railway, over which the London and North Western railway has running powers, and about 1 mile north from Colwich station, North Staffordshire and London and North Western railways, 128 miles from London by rail and 131 by road and 5½ east-south-east from Stafford, and together with the hamlet of SWANSMOOR was formed in 1854 into an ecclesiastical parish from the civil parishes of Colwich and Stowe; it is in the Western division of the County, South Pirehill hundred, Stafford union, petty sessional division and county court district, rural deanery of Rugeley, archdeaconry of Stafford and diocese of Lichfield.

The rivers Trent and Sowe unite on the west side of the village, and here also is the junction of the Staffordshire and Worcestershire and Trent and Mersey canals; the former is carried over the river Trent by an aqueduct of four arches, and there is also a wharf for landing merchandise. The church of St. Stephen, erected (with the exception of some part of the north and west walls which formed part of an old chapel attached to the mother church of Colwich) at a cost of £2,500, besides materials, by the 2nd Earl of Lichfield, who died in January, 1892, and is buried here, is a small but handsome building of stone of the Early English style, and consists of chancel, nave, south aisle and a western turret containing one bell: in 1894 a brass to Thomas George end Earl of Lichfield (d.1892) was placed on the south wall of the nave: there are sittings for 345 persons.

The late Earl of Lichfield gave the land for the churchyard. The register dates from the year 1855. The living is a vicarage, tithe rent-charge £226, average £169, net yearly value £240, with residence, in the gift of the Earl of Lichfield, and held since 1892 by the Rev. George Owen Holt: in 1856 the late Earl of Lichfield augmented the endowment of the living by a gift of £2,000. In 1873 the patronage of the living was transferred to trustees in order to secure an augmentation of the income to its present value from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The Catholic chapel of St. John the Baptist, formerly standing in the parish of Tixall, was taken down and re-erected here in 1845; it is a building of stone, in the Perpendicular style, consisting of chancel, nave and a belfry containing one bell, and has 220 sittings. Mount Zion Congregational chapel, built in 1845, has sittings for 160 persons.

Here is a working men's reading room and library of 350 volumes, built by the late Earl of Lichfield and supported by subscription. In the angle formed by the confluence of the rivers Trent and Sowe stands Shugborough Hall, the seat of the Earl of Lichfield D.L., J.P. the principal front presents a noble centre, with two semicircular wings: the demesne, which comprises several hundred acres, is a rich plain, well wooded, and watered by the streams above named: in the park is a triumphal arch, erected to Vice-Admiral George Lord Anson, who made himself famous by his voyage round the world during 1740-44; the arch is decorated with medallions of white marble inclosing carvings emblematic of naval victories and busts of Lord and Lady Anson: in the grounds is a Chinese temple, erected from a sketch by Sir Percy Brett, and a building of stone called "The Dark Lantern". The London and North Western railway passes under the park by a tunnel half a mile long constructed in 1847. Over the river Trent is a handsome stone bridge of 14 arches, built at the expense of the county, in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and originally consisting of 42 arches. The Earl of Lichfield is lord of the manor. The principal landowners are the Earl of Shrewsbury and Talbot and the Earl of Lichfield. The soil is gravel; subsoil, rock and sandstone. The chief crops are barley, oats and beans. The area is 2,134 acres; the population in 1891 was 614.

SWANSMOOR is a hamlet 1½ miles east.

Parish Clerk, George Hobson.

POST, M.O. & T.O., S.B., Express Delivery & Annuity & Insurance Office.- James Wm. Stanley, sub-postmaster.

Letters arrive at 4 a.m.; delivered 6.30 a.m. & 3 p.m.; sunday, delivered 6.30 a.m.; dispatched at 1.10 & 9.20 p.m.; sunday, 9.20 p. m

SCHOOLS:-
National (boys), for 60; average attendance, 40; Fred. Pownall, master

National (girls & infants), erected in 1868, for 80; average attendance, 70; Mrs. Elizabeth Pownall, mistress

Catholic, built in 1845, for 60 children; average attendance, 30; Miss Monica Hill, mistress

Railway Station (North Staffordshire railway), James Keeling, station master

Police, Arthur Carter Potto, sergeant & 1 constable

CARRIER TO STAFFORD.- William Tooth, every sat
[Kelly's Directory of Staffordshire, 1896]