56 A TOPOGRAPHICAL 



Till tyrant Law usurp'd the land, 



Stretch'd o'er the woods his iron hand, 



Forbade the echoing horn to blow, 



Maim'd the staunch hound,* andsnapp'd the bow." 



HANBURY. This village is situated to the north of Needwood 

 Forest, upon a hill that commands an extensive prospect of the 

 meadows on the banks of the Dove, the Moorlands, and Peak-Hills. 

 From its bleak situation it is cold in winter, but delightful in summer. 



Hanbury is a place of great antiquity. In the year 680 the Saxon 

 princess St. Werburgh, remarkable for her piety, became Abbess of 

 a nunnery, founded here by her brother Ethelred, King of Mercia. 

 She was buried in this nunnery ; and in the year 875 her bones 

 were removed to Chester, where an elegant shrine was erected to 

 her memory. No vestige of the nunnery is now visible ; but it 

 doubtless stood to the east of the present church, human bones 

 having been frequently dug up in the ground now occupied by Mr. 

 Hunt's garden, and in an adjacent gravel-pit. 



A family, who took their name from the place, were lords of this 

 manor at a very early period. At present, it belongs to the Villiers 

 family, who appoint a game-keeper, and claim common rights on 

 Needwood Forest. The manor-house commands a most extensive 

 prospect. Hanbury Church is an ancient stone edifice, with a square 

 tower ; it stands on the edge of a steep declivity, and was formerly 

 a rectory, but is now a vicarage in the deanery of Tamworth. It is 

 dedicated to St. Werburgh, and was founded long before the Con- 

 quest. The presentation is vested in the Bishop of Lichfield and 

 Coventry. In the year 1793 the Rev. Hugh Bailye pulled down 

 the old vicarage-house, and built a new one on the opposite side of 

 the church, which commands a charming and extensive prospect. 



Extract from the Parish Register. " On Sunday 14th Septem- 

 ber, 1777, about eleven o'clock in the forenoon, a smart shock of an 

 earthquake was felt in several places of this neighbourhood (but not 

 in the village.) In some places indeed, particularly Cheshire, arid 

 Lancashire, it was so violent, that the people fled out of the churches 

 in great terror/' 



Felde, or Faulde, is a hamlet in this parish, about half way be- 

 tween Hanbury and Tutbury, and situated on a fine natural terrace 

 above the meadows of the Dove. This hamlet was recorded, by 

 mistake, in Doomsday-book for Hanbury. 



* This alludes to the order for lawing, or cutting-off a claw of all dogs kept 

 within the purlieus of the Royal forests, to prevent their destroying the deer. 



