A HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE 



did far from London, cut off from easy communication with the continent 

 of Europe, shut in on the north by wild tracks of moorland and limestone 

 hills, with the thickly wooded Cannock Chase on the south and the Welsh 

 mountains as a barrier in the western distance. For the numerous rivers 

 of Staffordshire, though excellent for fertilizing purposes, were practically 

 useless for navigation. The Trent only becomes navigable at Burton, and its 

 distance at this point from the eastern sea makes it negligible as a ready 

 means of communication. All the other rivers of any importance take an 

 easterly direction, and there was thus no way of reaching the western coast 

 by water until the cutting of canals in the eighteenth century. As to the 

 roads, which are now excellent, the evidence goes to show that in the central 

 part of the county they were good, but not elsewhere. 

 Dr. Plot, writing in 1686, says 



the highways, owing to the gravelly nature of much of the soil, are universally good, except 

 in the most northerly parts of the moorlands, where they are nearly impassable . . . and a 

 little about Wednesbury, Sedgley, and Dudley, where they are necessarily worn by the 

 carriage of coal. 



He goes on to quote a remark of King James, who, speaking jocularly of this 

 county, once remarked that it was ' fit only to be cut out into thongs to make 

 highways for the rest of the kingdom.' 6 



But as the developing industry of the county was centred within these 

 northern and southern parts, it was peculiarly unfortunate that the roads there 

 should be so bad. The potters suffered much in the first half of the eighteenth 

 century from the badness of the roads. Many of the materials for their 

 manufacture had to be imported from outside the county, and these, as well 

 as the finished goods for export, were conveyed by means of ' pot-wagons,' 

 or on the backs of pack-horses. The roads are described as being narrow, 

 with high banks at their sides, always, even in summer, soft and clayey, and 

 full of deep ruts. In winter, the strings of pack-horses could scarcely get 

 from place to place, and many a poor, horse fell dead on the roadside, breaking, 

 as it fell, the heavy load of crockery it bore on its back. 6 



Besides coal and iron, Staffordshire possesses other mineral resources in 

 limestone, alabaster, salt, clays and marls for the rougher sort of pottery ware, 

 and a certain amount of good building stone. 



Its rock formation is of a kind to ensure a pure and plentiful water 

 supply, owing to the porous nature of the new red sandstone which covers 

 the greater part of the county. Besides this, the hill regions of millstone 

 grit and carboniferous limestone which lie east of the northern coalfield are 

 the source of innumerable springs of pure water, and the slope of the boundary 

 hills such as Mow Cop and Cloud is such as to keep the streams well within 

 the county. The millstone grit indeed and the coal measures throw off most 

 of the 29 in. of annual rainfall, 7 though it is to be noted that the water drawn 

 from the coal measures is contaminated, and therefore useless for purposes of 

 consumption. Staffordshire gains a further supply from the limestone hills 

 of Derbyshire, and it seems probable that the great underground reservoir of 



* Rob. Plot, The Nat. Hist, of Staff. (1686), no. Llewellyn Jewitt, The Wedgwoods, 170. 



' The general average for the county, calculated from the rainfall returns covering a period of twenty 

 jrears, is 29 in. For the north-west it rises to 33*12 in. whilst in the south-east it only reaches 26 in. 



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