Tutbury

infobox UK place
country = England
official_name= Tutbury
latitude= 52.854
longitude= -1.686
population =
shire_district= East Staffordshire
shire_county = Staffordshire
region= West Midlands
Politics=
constituency_westminster= Burton
post_town= BURTON-ON-TRENT
postcode_district = DE13
postcode_area= DE
dial_code= 01283
os_grid_reference= SK211285

Tutbury is a large village and civil parish of about 3,000 residents in the English county of Staffordshire.

It is surrounded by the agricultural countryside of both Staffordshire and Derbyshire. The site has been inhabited for over 3000 years, with Iron Age defensive ditches encircling the main defensive hill, upon which now stands ruins of a Norman castle. These ditches can be seen most clearly at The Park pale and at the top of the steep hills behind Park Lane.The name Tutbury probably derives from a Scandinavian settler and subsequent chief of the hill-fort, Totta, bury being a corruption of the anglo-Saxon name for 'fortified place'. It is 5 miles north of Burton upon Trent and 20 miles south of the Peak District.

Quarries near Tutbury once produced alabaster which was used in the carving of Nottingham Alabaster.

Until 2006, Tutbury Crystal, a manufacturer of high-quality cut glass products, was based in the village - however production transferred to Stoke-on-Trent as the existing factory was very old and was thought to be too small for the modern company's requirements. The old factory was demolished and apartments are being built on the site. A factory shop still operates in the village however. Despite this, the tourism trade survives thanks to the long and distinguished history of the Norman Priory Church and medieval Tutbury Castle where Mary, Queen of Scots was once imprisoned.

Tutbury Castle became the headquarters of Henry de Ferrers and was the centre of the wapentake of Appletree, which included Duffield Frith. With his wife Bertha, he endowed Tutbury Priory with two manors in about 1080. It would seem that Tutbury at that time was a dependency of the Norman abbey of St Pierre‑sur‑Dives. [Marios Costambeys, 'Ferrers, Henry de (d. 1093x1 100)’, Oxford Dictionary ofNational Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, May 2007 [ 61, accessed 28 Oct 2007] ]

There are some fine Georgian and Regency buildings and the half-timbered Dog and Partridge Hotel. There are antique and craft shops in the village which often have been run by the same families for many years.

Tutbury and Hatton railway station, was opened by the North Staffordshire Railway on 11 September 1848. It then closed during the 1960s to reopen in 1989. It is on the Crewe to Derby Line.

References

External links

* [http://www.upmystreet.com/overview/?l1=tutbury Information from UpMyStreet]
*mmukscaled|SK211291|25|Map from MultiMap
* [http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?x=420500&y=328500&z=1&sv=420500,328500&st=4&mapp=newmap.srf&searchp=newsearch.srf Map from StreetMap]
* [http://www.burton-on-trent.net/?CategoryID=8 Tutbury Community Forum]