Description:Lapley is a parish of two communities and former townships, Lapley and Wheaton Aston, situated to the west of Penkridge.
The name, Lapley, probably comes from the Saxon ‘Laeppa Leah’, meaning a woodland clearing. Aston means ‘east town’ and it is thought that the distinguishing adjective ‘wheaton’ was applied because this was in a wheat growing area of some quality.
In 1061 the manor of Lapley was given to the Abbey of St Remy or Remigius at Rheims by Algar, Earl of Mercia, in gratitude for the care received from the monks at Rheims by his son, who died there and was subsequently buried at the Abbey. Lapley is included in the Domesday Book, when it is referred to as ‘Lepelie’. At that time it was worth 50 shillings and had enough arable land to support six ploughs.
Monks from the Abbey of St Remy were settled in Lapley by 1108 and possibly before, having established a small Benedictine priory there. In 1415 it was suppressed along with all the alien or foreign priories in England and its lands granted to the collegiate church of Tong. By 1663, both the manors of Lapley and Wheaton Aston had been acquired by the Biddulph family.
During the Civil War, Lapley House (Hall) and church were the scene of a parliamentary garrison of 70 men. The garrison was captured on 21 December 1643 by Colonel Heveningham. Although this was followed by a skirmish between reinforcements arriving simultaneously for both sides, Colonel Leveson was able to hold the garrison for the Royalists. During the Interregnum in 1655, there was a locally famous case of 13 morris dancers being prosecuted at the Staffordshire Quarter Sessions for dancing at Lapley.
In 1666 there were 13 households in Lapley chargeable for payment of the hearth tax The largest of these was Lapley House, with 14 hearths. By contrast, Wheaton Aston was a much larger place, recording a total of 53 households chargeable for the hearth tax.
In April 1777 a devastating fire destroyed 19 houses, 16 outhouses and all of their contents in Wheaton Aston. The site of the fire was south- west of church. The spread of the fire was blamed on the thatched roofs and, when the houses were rebuilt, they were all tiled.
All Saints church, Lapley has considerable Norman features and a conspicuous tower, which was raised in height at the end of the 15th century. Despite repairs and enhancement in 1723 and 1770, by 1855 the church was reported as being in poor condition and the tower in particular was causing concern. As a result considerable rebuilding of the tower took place. The church also has a notable and unusual font, which may have been imported from the Netherlands.
There was a small chapel of ease at Wheaton Aston by the 14th century. This stood on the site of the present church of St Mary, built of local sandstone in 1857 to the design of architects, Bidlake and Lovatt. It was enlarged in 1894. Nonconformity appeared in Wheaton Aston by 1806, when Congregationalist students from Hackney College, on holiday at Brewood, held open air services there. The Independents built a chapel here in 1814 and the Primitive Methodists in 1832.
Education was catered for early on by provision in the will of Thomas Scutt in1702 for a schoolmaster to teach all poor children and scholars in the parish. The free school provided under Scutt’s will was the origin of the later Wheaton Aston Voluntary Primary School.
Wheaton Aston is also renowned for the rare and protected snake’s head fritillary, known locally as ‘folfalarum’. This flower grows wild in very few places and Wheaton Aston is the most northerly site. It was recorded growing here as early as 1787. In the past it was an annual village event to pick the flower on 1st May.
For more information about Lapley, see the Victoria County History Staffordshire, Volume IV, pp 143-155.