The ancestors of the present earl have resided on this estate since the reign of James I., but the first to reach the peerage was Admiral George Anson, who, in 1740, began a protracted voyage, during which he circumnavigated the globe, and inflicted great injuries on the Spanish settlements in the New World. Afterwards he defeated the French in a naval engagement. As a reward for these and other services he was created Baron Anson, but the title expired with him. A nephew, however, who succeeded to his estate, was ultimately created Viscount Anson, and the earldom of Lichfield dates from 1831.
Shortly below its junction with the Sow the Trent is crossed by a curious old bridge, which, if only for its view of the valley, is worth a visit. Just above it the stream is divided by a wooded island and the western branch tumbles over a tiny weir: then the united waters, after passing beneath the bridge, contract as they flow between banks overhung by trees; these are backed on the left by the steep slopes already mentioned, but on the right stretch away till the wooded plain mounts to the uplands of Cannock Chase. The Essex Bridge, as it is called, from some connection with the family of Devereux, once owners of Chartley, even now consists of fourteen arches, but, according to the old county histories, was formerly of greater length. It is, however, difficult to see on which side the bridge has been cut short; but possibly the road across the valley may have been continued by a causeway, which was included with the bridge. This is a singularly picturesque old structure of grey sandstone, only about four feet in width, with an angle of refuge for foot passengers at every one of the piers—a convenience which will be appreciated by the traveller even if he encounter only a tricycle in crossing.
CANNOCK CHASE, FROM THE TRENT.
In the park of Shugborough, and for a short distance below this, Trent approaches nearest to the edge of Cannock Chase. Indeed, for rather more than a mile above Wolseley Bridge, opposite the villages of Great Heywood and Colwich, a walk of a furlong, through a mere belt of cultivated land, leads on to an open moor which in some directions extends without a break for miles. The Chase is an undulating upland rising some three or four hundred feet above the valley of the Trent, and often not far from six hundred feet above sea level, a plateau consisting of rolling hills and narrow valleys with steeply shelving sides, composed almost wholly of the “pebble beds”—thick masses of a rather hard and sandy gravel containing pebbles which often are three or four inches in diameter. There is practically no surface soil, and thus the moors offers little temptation to the “land-grabbers.” Of late years indeed its area has been diminished, and its beauties not augmented, by considerable enclosures in the neighbourhood of Rugeley and Hednesford, and by the opening of collieries near the latter place. But the new fields do not seem likely to do much more than pay interest on the first expenditure, and the collieries have not been so uniformly successful as to cause apprehensions that, at any rate in the present generation, the moorland will become a “Black Country.” Another danger has lately threatened its solitudes, for a tract of Cannock Chase was one of the sites proposed for the meeting of the National Rifle Association in succession to Wimbledon Common. Bisley has been preferred, but there is still a possibility that this tract may be used as a practice ground for the Volunteers of the Midland and Northern counties, in which case the charm of another large segment of the Chase will quickly vanish.
At present, notwithstanding the occasional prospect of distant collieries, there are few districts in the Midlands which offer more attractions than Cannock Chase. The contour of the ground, it is true, does not exhibit much variety. It is, as has been said, an undulating plateau from which fairly well-marked valleys, gradually deepening, descend towards the lowlands, but there is much diversity in the minor details. Here sturdy oaks are scattered or graceful birches cluster close on slope or valley. Here only some weather-beaten sentinel of either tree, or a wind-worn thorn breaks the barrenness of the hill, or a few Scotch firs crown its crest. Almost everywhere the bracken flourishes, and heath or ling grows thick on the stony soil. So, in the late summer, the Chase for miles glows with the crimson bloom of the heath, or is flushed with the tender pink of the ling, while as autumn draws on the fern turns to gold on the slopes, and on the barer brows the bilberry leaf changes to scarlet, and the moor, soon to don the russet hue of its winter garb, seems to reflect the rich tints of the sunset sky. But this is not all. Among its many charms is the contrast of scenery: one moment you may be quite shut in by the undulations of the moorland—sweeps of fern and heath and ling bounding the view on every side—seemingly as far from the haunts of man as among the Sutherland Hills; but the next, on gaining the crest of some rounded ridge, many a mile of fertile lowland spreads out before your eyes—many a league of the rich vales of the Trent and the Sow, one vast and varied tapestry of woodland and cornfield and pasture, while beyond and above, rise, in this direction, the Wrekin dome and the Caradoc peaks, in that the great rounded uplands of Derbyshire, and in that the more broken outlines of the Charnwood Forest Hills. Deer once were common, black-game and grouse abundant, the snipe and even the woodcock made their nests in the valleys, and other rare birds were to be seen. But now the deer are few and the game is scanty. Cannock Chase, like the rest of Great Britain, suffers from the congestion of humanity.
But we must return to the Trent, from which we have wandered away into the moors. For a few miles, after leaving Shugborough Park, though it affords much pretty scenery, there is no place of special beauty or of historical interest near its banks. It passes under a new bridge, close to one of the approaches to the Chase; it leaves on the left the village of Colwich and its neat church, on the right Oakedge Park, from which the residence has now disappeared. This, more than a century since, was the scene of a local scandal—a fascinating widow, a midnight marriage, and a verification of the old proverb about haste and leisure in regard to that bond. Then the river glides beneath the three arches of Wolseley Bridge—deservedly held in repute for its graceful though simple design—and passes at the back of Wolseley Hall. The estate has been owned by Wolseleys from before the Norman Conquest—but the house is comparatively modern, is of little interest, and is placed too near the water. Of this family Viscount Wolseley is a member, tracing back his descent to a younger son of a former baronet, and is thus a distant cousin of Sir Charles Wolseley, the present owner of the estate.
About half a mile from the Trent, and almost at the foot of the uplands of Cannock Chase, lies Rugeley, a small market town, the chief industry of which is a tannery. This place some thirty years ago acquired an unenviable notoriety as the scene of a case of poisoning, which attracted much attention and presented points of legal interest. The chief railway station is near the river, and so at some distance from the town, of which little is seen. The slender spire which rises above its houses is that of the Roman Catholic Church; the Anglican Church is at the nearer entrance of the town. It was built early in the century, and if ugliness were a merit might claim the first rank, but on the opposite side of the road are the tower and some portions of the old church, which are not without a certain picturesqueness. The tall chimneys on the hill slopes, a mile or more beyond the town, indicate the northern boundary of the South Staffordshire coalfield. Here the escarpment of the moorlands is not very far away from a fault by which the coal measures are thrown down for so many hundred feet that no attempt has yet been made to sink shafts in the valley of the Trent.
