Description:The small village of Mucklestone is situated south-west of Newcastle- under - Lyme and adjoins the county boundary with Shropshire. It is the most westerly parish in Staffordshire. The Battle of Blore Heath took place close by on 23 September 1459.
The name Mucklestone may derive from the Old English word, ‘micel’ meaning large and ‘stan’ meaning stone. This may be a reference to the two large carved stones in the parish dating from the Neolithic Age, about 4500 BC, called the Devil’s Ring and the Devil’s Finger. These are thought to have formed part of a tomb. An alternative derivation of the name may be the Old English personal name ‘Mucel’ so meaning Mucel’s tun or farmstead.
There was also a Roman settlement in the area called Mediolanium. At the time of the Domesday Survey in 1086 Mucklestone was called ‘Moclestone’. Then too the manor was small, consisting of land enough for only one plough team and an acre of meadow. The population was four, including the priest. The value placed on the manor was 5 shillings. In the Middle Ages the Cistercian abbey of Combermere in Cheshire maintained a grange or farm at Winnington.
In 1532-1533 the parish was recorded as Mogolston with a population of 19 families. By the time of the Hearth Tax returns of 1666, 18 households were recorded in Mucklestone, five in Oakley, eight in Knighton and 17 in Winnington. A further 36 householders were listed as being too poor to be chargeable for tax. The largest houses were Oakley Hall occupied by John Chetwode with 11 hearths and the house at Winnington occupied by Charles, Lord Gerard, with nine hearths. The rectory had five hearths so was also a substantial building.
Oakley Hall was rebuilt for the Chetwode family in 1710, with a façade of eleven bays. The centre three bays have large pilasters extending from the ground upwards to the pediment. Oakley Hall was sold by the Chetwode family in 1920.
The parish church is dedicated to St Mary. The church was rebuilt in 1883 by Lynam and Rickman, architects of Stoke on Trent, in the Decorated style. Queen Margaret of Anjou is reputed the have watched the Battle of Blore Heath from the church tower. Her forces were defeated and she was forced to flee. A Mucklestone blacksmith, William Skelhorne, reversed the shoes on her horse to confuse her pursuers. The church contains a number of monuments to the Chetwode family and some splendid Kempe windows.
By the early 20th century, elementary schools were provided at Aston, Knighton and Mucklestone. Now there is just the one school at Mucklestone, St Mary’s Church of England (Voluntary Aided ) School.
At Mucklestone Wood Farm, William Smith and his sister incarcerated their mentally ill brother, George, in appalling conditions in the attic. He was rescued in 1826 by two local justices of the peace, the Revd Henry Delves Broughton and Mr Eld. They removed George Smith to the County Asylum at Stafford, where he died in 1829. At the request of his family his body was returned to be buried in Mucklestone. Some years later, however, in 1883 a workman accidentally hit the coffin with a pick only to find it empty. A collection of newspaper cuttings on the case was brought together by a Staffordshire antiquary, James Broughton, and is now in the William Salt Library in Stafford.
Mucklestone is also notable for the settlement here in about 1794 of Louis Martin de Laistre, a French émigré priest who fled from the Revolution. He was the first of such priests to settle in Staffordshire and for a time tutored the children of the rector. Later he took charge of the Catholic mission at Ashley.