Built in the Gothic style from the early 13th century to 1330. 'Lichfield is not one of the largest medieval cathedrals (external length 397 ft (121 metres)) but it has two features which single it out. It has three spires ... and it has two pools below to southward and eastward, ensuring a picturesqueness of setting which none can emulate.' The three spires are often referred to as the 'Ladies of the Vale'.

The west front is decorated with sculptures emphasising early Mercian history, British kings and biblical figures. 'No other English cathedral has such as array'.

Lichfield suffered severe damage during the English Civil War, in which all of the stained glass was destroyed.

‘Croxden Abey is by far the most impressive monastic ruin in Staffordshire. It stands in a quiet valley, not far from the quarries which produced its Hollington stone. Though less complete than, say, the famous ruins at Rievaulx or Fountains in Yorkshire, its plan-form and architecture make it of much more than local interest.’

‘In 1176 Bertram de Verdun founded the abbey, for Cistercians, as a daughter house of Aunay in Normandy. … A first church consecration is recorded for 1181, a second consecration for 1253.’

‘Leek, ‘the Queen of the Moorlands’, was a significant pre-Conquest site, and has been a market town since C13. It’s livestock market - the county’s sole survivor – is no longer in the centre, but on market days the main streets are still busy with shoppers. Silk working was established here in the later C17, and the end of the C18 some 2,000 people were engaged in what was as yet a cottage industry.’

‘From its combination of architecture and townscape, Leek is the most attractive town in Staffordshire.’

‘Nicholson Institute (Leek Library), Stockwell Street. By W. Sugden & Son, 1882–4, i.e. from the golden years of the partnership. The building, given to the town by the Congregationalist Joshua Nicholson, contained a school of art, top-lit museum and art gallery, and a public library. Red brick, in a resourceful mid-C17 style inspired by T.G. Jackson.

It has no street frontage. From the street one only sees the tower, a variation on Wren’s (or Hooke’s) at St Benet Fink in the City of London.

To the l. a large stone-framed window with medallions of Shakespeare, Newton, Reynolds and Tennyson, carved by Stephen Webb.’

‘St John the Baptist, Church Bank. Rebuilt in 1868–70 by Thomas Lewis at the expense of Ralph Sneyd of Keele Hall.

Rock-faced red sandstone and cream Hollington stone. The sharp spire with coarse pinnacles around its base is a landmark since trees preclude more distant views of the church itself.’

‘Weston Park is a large, square brick house, eleven by nine bays and three storeys high, its three ranges originally enclosing a courtyard open to the N. The S. and E. ranges were built by Sir Thomas and Lady Elizabeth Wilbraham (nee Mytton) in 1671, she being traditionally credited with the design.’ Research has shown that her role at Weston Park ‘would seem to have been that of an involved patron rather than designer’.

‘The Hall and its collections were accepted by the Government in lieu of death duties in 1986, since when it has been owned and managed by the Weston Park Foundation.’

‘For picturesque ground and garden furnishings, few houses in England can compare with Shugborough. It is an almost wholly Georgian creation, developed initially by Thomas Anson, who inherited a moderately sized house and some 90 acres of farmland in 1720, and who died in 1773. His legacy was an ornamental landscape of international importance and a house redolent of the Grand Tour. James (‘Athenian’) Stuart was the most eminent of the designers that Anson employed.’

The next great changes were effected by his great-nephew, another Thomas, who inherited in 1789, became Viscount Anson in 1806 and died in 1818. Samuel Wyatt, his chosen architect, made the house more monumental.’

'Alton Towers and its gardens are the creation of the 15th and 16th earls of Shrewsbury.' 'The 16th Earl's intention was to give form to the highest dreams of Catholic Romanticism as entertained by his most famous architect, A.W.N. Pugin', who the Earl engaged in 1837.

Alton Towers is now the location of a huge entertainments complex. It first opened to the public on a regular basis following the opening of Alton Towers railway station in 1849. In 1924, a group of local estate agents formed Alton Towers Ltd to take ownership of the estate and began to restore the gardens as a tourist attraction. In the 1950s, this included the operation of a fairground, and by the 1970s included a boating lake and chairlift.

‘The most celebrated of Burslem’s buildings. Designed by G.B. Nicholls in 1860, erected in 1863–9, using a different façade scheme by Robert Edgar and John Lockwood Kipling; work on the frontage continued to 1873.

Architecturally the model is C14 Siena, but the extensive use of terracotta – proposed by Beresford Hope – transforms it to a showcase of artistry in clay. Local students, seconded to South Kensington in 1865, undertook the modelling. Rowland Morris did most of the figurative work; the statue of Wedgwood, the powerfully composed relief panels of the Months of the Year, and at least three of the narrative scenes depicting the making of pottery. The mosaic roundels of the Zodiac are by Salviati.’

‘Old Town Hall. Market Place. Designed in 1852 by George Thomas Robinson, built 1854–7. A splendid composition, commanding the Market Place and displaying young Robinson’s talents to best advantage.

Ashlar, with battered base, giant Corinthian pilasters in pairs, and angle columns. Reinforcing the Baroque tendencies, the memorable W portico of clustered giant columns, rising to Atlantes that bear a festooned clock stage and a winged figure of Victory.’

‘Josiah Wedgwood’s own house, survives – by turns extended, abused and partially restored. Pickford’s creation of 1768–70 was a compact Palladian brick villa, three storeys, five bays, and two string courses between ground and first floor.’

‘The two-storey wings and single storey links were added c.1780 as Wedgwood’s family increased. From his house he could look out to the gardens and park landscaped by William Emes, but by 1900 steelworks and blast furnaces filled the view, and by 1925 the house, then steel company offices, had a crude ground-floor structure along its NE face. The steelworks having closed in 1979, the ‘desolate moonscape’ was reformed and greened for the country’s second National Garden Festival in 1986.'

‘Engulfing the 1954–6 building by J.R. Piggott is the extensive enlargement of 1976–80 (City Architect A. Darlington; job architect, Keith Dale). Not an improvement. Only some awkward circulation points internally betray the existence of the 1950s structure.

Though relieved by Frank Maurier’s large brick frieze of local industries, the elevations offer a succession of materials and shapes without a theme. Most continuity is offered by the canted panels of crushed aggregate around the upper parts. Thankfully simpler, the S extension by Glancy Nicholls Architects, 2019–20: pale stone cladding and two almost fully glazed walls to give views of the exhibited Spitfire aircraft.’

‘As much as anywhere in north Staffordshire, Longton was made by ‘pits and pots’ – coal mining and ceramics. Its centre is on relatively low ground at the SE of the city, and not until C19 was it sufficiently urban to abandon the name of Lane End. To the SW stood Longton Hall (demolished 1939), where porcelain was manufactured from c.1750.

Longton has – to date – preserved more of the Georgian or Georgian-type pottery offices and warehouses and more of the bottle ovens than the other towns in the Potteries.’

‘Queen’s Park, Trentham Road. 1887–9. North Staffordshire came late to the movement for public parks. This was the first, promoted by the 3rd Duke of Sutherland and laid out by his agent, John H. Garrett.

The architects for the clock tower (1891–2) were W.H.S. Thompson & W.H. Wood of Gateshead.’

‘Quite splendidly located, at a distance from the village, and a landmark on the skyline for travellers by road, rail or canal between Stone and Stoke. Built 1756–8 for Thomas Mills, a lawyer from Leek, by Sir Robert Taylor.

By the 1970s the house was in a state of complete disrepair, having suffered from undermining for coal. Its subsequent rescue – starting in 1981 by SAVE Britain’s Heritage – is one of the most heartening of stories. Ceilings and floors had gone; only fragments remained of the fine cantilevered Chinese Chippendale staircase, woodcarving and plasterwork. A careful recreation (with Peter Ware as architect) for the Hall family had impressive results.’

‘In 1936 the Wedgwood Company decided to move away from Etruria and build a new factory and a model village, some way N of the old village and separate from the Hall. Keith Murray and Charles S. White were chosen as Wedgwood’s architects on the strength of vases, etc., designed for them by Murray in modern shapes. Their buildings are not architecturally outstanding, though at the time they were welcomed as a step in the right direction – a factory in a parkland.’

The factory, built 1938–40, was the ‘first pottery factory to be built without bottle ovens’.

‘St Giles, Church Street. For centuries a chapel of Stoke, becoming a parish church in 1807. Of the medieval building only the mighty W tower survives, its motifs late C13, though it was completely refaced in 18 94. The rest of the church is by Sir George Gilbert Scott, 1873–6 (replacing a brick church of 1720–1 by William Smith I).

It is a worthy parish church for a town, large and dominantly placed, varied in outline and appointed in Scott’s Middle Pointed (i.e. late C13) style. Externally all is of red sandstone; internally Bath stone pre-dominates.’

‘The ruins of Tutbury Castle lie splendidly 100 ft (30 metres) above the plain, S of the River Dove. … At the time of Domesday, Tutbury was one of only three boroughs in Staffordshire and had the county’s sole recorded market.’

‘Tutbury Castle goes back to the late C11, although the excavation in 2007 of a Roman kiln in the outer bailey shows that the site was occupied much earlier. The first castle was built soon after the Conquest – around 1068–9 – for Hugh d’Avranches, but rapidly passed to another Norman, Henry de Ferrers. From the Ferrers family, in 1265, it passed to the earls of Lancaster, and it still belongs to the duchy now.’

People who have stayed there include Eleanor of Aquitaine and Mary, Queen of Scots (as a prisoner).

‘Magistrate’s Court, Horninglow Street. 1909–10 by Henry Beck. Small, of white artificial stone, symmetrical and with a dome. It might be taken for a variety theatre. The jolly baroque style inspired by E.A. Rickards.’

‘The adjoining Police Station of 1998–9 by Staffordshire County Council Architects is never so engaging, though in a Postmodern way it also tries to appear both playful and daunting.’

‘Just of the Uttoxeter road, a quiet village.’

‘St Mary and All Saints, Church Lane. The noble church of a once extensive parish. Trees now rather limit first impressions of what is a fine, and also an intriguing, building.’

‘In the churchyard, c. 25 ft (7.6 metres) from the S porch, three substantial fragments of Anglo-Saxon cross shafts, late C9 or C10. One has barely a hint of former decoration. The next has interlace panels and worn figures, the W face showing the Fiery Furnace scene (Daniel 3; suggestions by Dr Jane Hawkes). The third, tallest and finest, has ranks of two and three figures, some haloed, most with interlace bodies. One group may represent the Arrest of Christ.’

‘This one of the largest parish churches of Staffordshire (c. 190 ft (58 metres) long if the tower is included) and one of the most interesting. It is well placed away from the traffic and yet connected with the day-to-day life of the town by a shopping square on its S.’

‘The building is dominated by its powerful W tower, and there are nave, aisles, transepts and a number of E end annexes, the SE ones Victorian.’

‘The existence of a church at Tamworth (not necessarily on this site) is known in C8, and again after the Danish sack of 874. The present church was made collegiate in the C12.’

‘The core of Tamworth occupies a low plateau by the confluence of the rivers Anker and Tame. … At or near the modern town, the C8 and C9 Mercian kings had a residence, referred to first in a charter issued by Offa in 780.King Alfred’s daughter Æthelflæd founded a burgh in Tamworth in 913.’

‘Tamworth Castle. First mentioned in 1141, but almost certainly created in the time of William the Conqueror. The huge Norman Motte remains, nearly 280 ft (85 metres) in diameter and 50 ft (15 metres) high, in the SW corner of the Saxon burgh. The earliest visible stonework is the herringbone masonry of the curtain wall to the E of the irregularly shaped Norman shell-keep, which now as then dominates the approach from the S across the River Tame.’

‘The medieval town, given a charter in 1251, grew up at the gates of an Augustinian priory that was founded c.1135. Its older buildings reflect a history of milling, brewing and shoemaking. In more recent centuries it has depended on transport (coaching, canals, commuting). Stone in the early C21 is a flourishing place, having almost doubled in size since 1971.’

‘St Michael, Church Street. 1753–8, by William Robinson of the Board of Customs, William Baker supervising construction. … Robinson’s design is a remarkably early piece of Gothic Revival, and entirely matter-of-fact in the sense if Georgian Enlightenment, without any ogee details or Rococo frills.’

‘Ilam is beautifully placed in the Manifold Valley, an attraction for medieval pilgrims, Romantic-era travellers and modern tourists alike.’

‘In a strategic position the cross – originally with fountain basins – in memory of the first Mrs Watts Russell, erected by her husband in 1841, and designed by J.M. Derick. It was inspired by the Eleanor Crosses – at the same early moment at which Scott developed his Oxford Martyrs’ Memorial from the same source. The six angels were carved by Richard Westmacott Jun. Major restoration by Ian Ward & Sons in 2011.’

‘Despite its present name-form, Uttoxeter has no demonstrably Roman origin. Its position at the heart of good dairying country led to its rise as a market town, a role which saw the population grow to 3,000 (as large as any in the county) in the 1690s. By then the town spread out in a web of curving streets, and brick houses were beginning to rise alongside the timber-framed buildings. Butter-making and leather working were important.

Subsequent development was never on a scale to obliterate the old street pattern, and timber houses can still be found among the Georgian and Victorian brick. … Perambulating the centre is more enjoyable since a new road system of the 1990s.’