Yoxall

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Date:1086 - 2015 (c.)

Description:The village of Yoxall is situated north east of the city of Lichfield. The river Swarbourne flows through it to join the Trent and it is thought that the original Anglo-Saxon settlement may have been on the river’s west bank. As a result of the river there are two bridges, Trent Bridge and Hall Bridge.

The first part of the name, Yoxall, is thought to derive from the Old English, geoc, which has more than one meaning including ‘a measure of land’ or the ‘yoke of oxen’. The second part of the name may derive from ‘halh’ meaning a small valley or hollow. The generally accepted meaning of the name is ‘a secluded piece of land large enough to be ploughed by one team of oxen’.

In the Domesday Book Yoxall is recorded as Locheshale, part of the lands of the Bishop of Lichfield and held by Rauen and Alwin as tenants. There was enough land for four ploughs to till. Many of the buildings in the main street with modern fronts have much older structures behind them. In particular Reeve End Cottage has the remains of a fourteenth century timber-framed house which had an aisled hall, said to be the only surviving one in Staffordshire. This feature suggests an original owner of some wealth and status at the time of its building.

In 1532-1533, 35 families were recorded in Yoxall, 12 at Bond End, 18 at Snails End, 16 at Woodhouses , 8 at Morrey and 11 at Hoar Cross, making a total of 550 persons in 100 families. By the time of the Hearth Tax assessment of 1666, 149 households were recorded in the constablewick of Yoxall. This would have included all the hamlets already mentioned. In 1689 Celia Fiennes travelled through Yoxall but sadly gave no description of what she saw.

Yoxall’s parish church is dedicated to St Peter. It was largely rebuilt between 1865 and 1868 by the architect Woodyer. A Roman Catholic church is situated at Wood Lane, originally built in 1795 and enlarged in 1854. The original building was disguised so that it did not look like a church at a time when Roman catholics were still subject to some persecution. The village also had two Primitive Methodist chapels.

Yoxall remained a farming community until well into the 20th century with a number of agriculturally related trades located in the village. A Victorian village shop which was formerly situated in Hadley Street was removed in its entirety and re-assembled at the County Museum at Shugborough. A cottage hospital, the Meynell Ingram Cottage Hospital, endowed by the Meynell-Ingram family, was built in 1873.

Notable connections with the village are the family of Mary Arden, the mother of Shakespeare, who purchased Longcroft Hall, now demolished, in 1576. Yoxall Lodge was the home of Rev Thomas Gisborne, a friend of William Wilberforce who frequently visited the village to meet with his friend. George Walton, the father of Izaak Walton the angler, also lived at Yoxall.

As with many villages in Staffordshire, Yoxall has a strange phenomenon. Horses refuse to pass the spot where a skeleton of a boy was discovered. He was proved to be the apprentice of the local blacksmith. The boy committed suicide because he received such ill treatment at the hands of his master and was buried in unconsecrated ground.


For those who want to know more, there is an excellent study of the early modern social history of Yoxall in A social history of Yoxall in the 16th and 17th centuries, edited by Denis Stuart. This can be consulted in the William Salt Library in Stafford or at Lichfield Library.

For more information about Yoxall, see the Victoria County History Staffordshire, Volume X pp 281-306.