Description:The name, Onecote, is first recorded in 1199 and is said to mean ‘remote cottage’. It is a small village, typical of the Staffordshire Moorlands, situated in the upper valley of the River Hamps. The countryside around the village was described as ‘wild and romantic’ in 1844. The land lies at 804 feet above sea level at the southern point of the village and 920 feet at the northern point. The village grew up at the meeting of the road from Bradnop over Morridge with the road from Ipstones to Butterton. The Ipstones- butterton road was turnpiked in 1769 and a tollgate was set up in the village. This remained until the road was disturnpiked in 1878.
In the Middle Ages, Onecote was very much monastic land. The Abbey of Hulton possessed pasture land and established a grange at Mixon, together with a sheepfold, and this proved to be the subject of some dispute with the Abbey of Dieulacres. When Hulton Abbey was dissolved by the Crown in 1538, Mixon passed firstly to the Agarde family and then through a variety of owners until it finally reached the Phillips of Heybridge in the 1870s. Croxden Abbey had considerable lands at Onecote by the early 13th century and at the Dissolution the estate was acquired by the Astons of Tixall, near Stafford as part of the manor of Bradnop, passing out of their possession in 1873.
Industrial exploitation began at Mixon in the 17th century with ‘stone getting’ and later in 1718 continued with digging for lead ore, copper ore and coal. A copper mine was working at Mixon by 1775. Although copper miners were listed in the 1851 census, it seems likely that production had ceased in the area by then and the miners may have worked at nearby Ecton. An attempt to revive copper mining in the 1850s failed.
There was a chapel at Onecote in 1524. The Georgian parish church was built in 1753-1755 and is dedicated to St Luke, although burials did not take place there until 1782. The cost of the church was met by subscription. It is notable for the very large ‘Commandments’ board with painted figures of Moses, Aaron and Joshua. Onecote was formerly a chapelry of the large parish of Leek but became a separate ecclesiastical parish with Bradnop in 1862. In 1983 the benefice was united with Ipstones.
Nonconformity in the village was represented by both the Primitive and the Wesleyan Methodists. In 1822 a Primitive Methodist chapel was opened. Hugh Bourne, the founder of Primitive Methodism, had formerly registered a preaching room in Onecote with the authorities in 1815. In 1826 a room was registered for the Wesleyan Methodist Society.
There were also Sunday schools for both Methodist denominations, probably the only effective form of education in the village until the opening of Onecote National School, built in 1872. In the 1940s, what had become known as Onecote Council School became a junior school only and eventually closed in 1984.
A dispute in the Cook family of Onecote Lane End Farm during the 1840s is said to have provided Charles Dickens with material for ‘Bleak House’, in which he attacked the protracted workings of Chancery. He was informed about the details of the Cook case by William Challinor, a Leek solicitor, involved in the case, who published the details in a pamphlet.
For more information about Onecote, see the Victoria County History Staffordshire, Volume VII, 210-216.