Description:Cotton Dell is
an area of woodland, 160 acres of which was purchased by the
Staffordshire Wildlife Trust in late 1999. The most notable rock feature
in the Dell is Bill's Rock. It is part of local legend having been the
scene of a tragedy in the sixteenth century. The daughter of a local
landowner, who had been promised in marriage to a local squire, fell in
love with a farm worker. The girl's father and the squire accompanied by
hounds chased the couple into the Dell. When the lovers reached Bill's
Rock they jumped off to their deaths, while the hounds supposedly
attacked their pursuers. Another version talks of a certain "Colonel
Bill" who, after a night of excess at the local Star Inn in Cotton,
chased a fox to his death over rocks into the brook below.