Welcome to Fawfieldhead Parish

Fawfieldhead is small civil parish in Staffordshire, England situated north-east of Leek and south of Buxton, in the Peak District National Park. It includes the hamlets of Fawfieldhead, Newtown, Reapsmoor and part of Hulme End to the west of the River Manifold.

Fawfieldhead is named after 'land called Fawfield', recorded in 1308, meaning 'multi-coloured open land' ie land bright with flowers. It is still mostly pasture with scattered farms, ranging from 1,588ft at its highest point to 699ft down by the river.

Four Bronze Age barrows have been identified on the east side of the parish and a medieval settlement was recorded 1331 in the north at School Clough.

In the later 17th and earlier 18th century the poor of Fawfieldhead, Heathylee, Hollinsclough, and Quarnford (adjoining parishes) were maintained jointly. In 1802 a workhouse was built at Reapsmoor which was converted in 1842 into a church (now St John's) and school. St. Paul's church at Newtown was built in 1837 by Sir George Crewe (local benefactor and philanthropist). There were also both Wesleyan and Primitive Methodist societies dating from 1765 in the parish.

In the early 1850's a brick and tile yard was opened at Reapsmoor by George Smith, a Tunstall brickmaker and a noted social reformer. He refused to employ boys aged under 13 and women or girls at all and not allowing Sunday working.

There was a cheese factory recorded in the parish in 1840, and others in 1844, 1851 and 1912. They liked their cheese around here!

The customary place for the stocks in the early 18th century was apparently Hayesgate.

The Leek & Manifold Valley light railway, opened in 1904, ran from Waterhouses to the Fawfieldhead part of Hulme End. The line was closed in 1934, but the wooden station building remains housing the Manifold Visitor Centre.

There was no school in the parish until the early 1830's when there were three day schools with a total of 24 boys and 21 girls paying fees, and a Sunday school with 54 boys and 56 girls. Newtown school was closed in 1964, and the children transferred to Longnor primary school.

In 1842 Sir George Crewe converted the ground floor of the former workhouse at Reapsmoor into a day school. It had 10 children on its books in 1931 but was closed in 1959 and the children transferred to Warslow primary school.