260 A TOPOGRAPHICAL 



of the planter's skill and attention. The late Mr. Vernou was 

 an early planter, and lived to see some of his first efforts fast ap- 

 proach to maturity. Many of the larches, and Scotch and other 

 fir trees of his planting, now contain from twenty to thirty feet of 

 timber. One plantation of very lofty oaks, is also an extensive 

 rookery. 



STRETTON is mentioned in the population returns for 1811, as a 

 liberty belonging to the parish of Penkridge. At that time it 

 contained 47 houses, 48 families; 118 males, 125 females: total, 

 243 persons. 



The village of Stretton is about three quarters of a mile north 

 of Watling Street-way, opposite Breewood. This place, now so 

 obscure, is considered by several learned antiquaries as the real 

 site of the ancient Roman station of Pennocrucium, as agreeing 

 in the distance with the account given in the Itinerary of Anto- 

 ninus. These antiquaries suppose the name of the place to be de- 

 rived from Street-way, but there are no vestiges of antiquity to 

 confirm the fact. Mr. Dickenson, indeed, in 1796, found a tumu- 

 lus on Roley Hill, in the vicinity of Stretton, which he considered 

 as a very likely place to have been a military station, having the 

 river Penk contiguous. Some small fragments of Roman imple- 

 ments have also been turned up by the plough, from time to time, 

 in the neighbourhood. 



The village contains several farm-houses, and smaller tene- 

 ments, and a family-mansion of great antiquity. 



Stretton-hall is evidently a structure of the last century, and is 

 built in a pleasant situation, with an extensive lawn in front, in- 

 terspersed with plantations, an ancient wood to the north, and the 

 church and village to the south. A high garden wall, sheltered with 

 plantations, extends to the highway. This village formerly be- 

 longed to the family of Conolly, of Ireland, from whom it was 

 purchased about twenty years ago by the Hon. Edward Monck- 

 ton, of Somerford. The upland is a strong marly loam, adapted 

 to wheat and beans : the pasturage is good, and the hedge-row 

 timber grows vigorously. The mansion is now occupied by a te- 

 nant. There is a mill on the Penk called Stretton milK The 

 Church, which was originally erected as a chapel of ease to Penk- 

 ridge, is dedicated to St. John. It now possesses its own rights 

 of marriage and sepulture, and has no dependence on the mother 

 church. 



Dunston is a small township between Penkridge and Stafford, 



