Description:Knutton is now a built - up suburb of Newcastle under Lyme and it is perhaps hard to appreciate that there has been a settlement here since the time of the Domesday Survey of 1086 when it appears as ‘Clotone’. One tradition is that it was named after King Canute, ‘Cnut’s town’. Until the early 19th century it was very rural township in the ancient ecclesiastical parish of Wolstanton. It was transformed by the development of the iron industry in the 19th century. But iron was present in Knutton long before then.
There was an iron mine in Knutton as early as 1314 while in 1686 there was a forge on Knutton Heath at which flat round iron plates were hammered out to make frying pans, subsequently manufactured in nearby Newcastle. In the 19th and early 20th centuries Knutton Forge was to become very extensive and was distinguished by its three large chimneys, known locally as Faith, Hope and Charity. By the early 19th century a number of pits had been opened in the surrounding area to produce iron ore and coal for the blast furnaces. Some of the streets in Knutton were named after local industrialists, such as Peake and Gordon. However, as the pits became worked out so the local forges and ironworks were gradually forced to close. Knutton Forge closed in 1929. During the 20th century industry in the village diversified to include baking and clothing.
The village benefited from industrialists such as Mr Gordon of Oakhill Hall, a local colliery proprietor, who was a generous benefactor of education in Knutton, maintaining one of the first schools at his own expense and contributing to the building of the new National School in 1872. There was also a flourishing school of mining here from 1933 until 1949.
The parish church of St Mary’s was built in 1872-74 by the architects, Thomas Lewis and Son, of Newcastle and Knutton became an ecclesiastical parish in its own right in 1875. In 1867 a Wesleyan Methodist chapel was built and in 1953 the Roman Catholic church of Our Lady of Sorrows..
Newcastle races were held on Knutton Heath in the 18th and early 19th centuries.