Tixall Gatehouse

Tixall is a small village and civil parish in the Stafford district, in the English county of Staffordshire lying on the western side of the Trent valley between Rugeley and Stone, Staffordshire and roughly 4 miles east of Stafford. The population of the civil parish taken at the 2011 census was 239.The place-name 'Tixall' is first attested in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it appears as Ticheshale. Deriving from Old English, the name means 'the hollow of the goats'.It is a fairly elongated village lying to the west of Great Haywood and just north of the sprawling Shugborough estate, the River Sow forming the natural boundary between the two, which joins the Trent on the Shugborough estate a mile or so east of Tixall. The village has benefited substantially from its close proximity to such affluent estates as Shugborough to the south and Sandon Hall and Ingestre Hall to the north, homes of the Earl of Lichfield, the Earl of Harrowby and the Earl of Shrewsbury respectively. Also passing nearby to the east and through the Trent valley is the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal, which expands into a body of water called Tixall Wide near to Tixall Gatehouse. Tixall Hall was the home of the Aston family, who held the title Lord Aston of Forfar. They were staunch Roman Catholics and Tixall was the centre of the local Catholic community. During the Popish Plot Tixall briefly became notorious as the centre of the alleged conspiracy to kill King Charles II, and many victims of the plot such as William Howard, 1st Viscount Stafford were questioned intensively as to their actions while at Tixall.

Tixall Wide, also known as Tixall Broad or The Broad Water, is a body of water that forms part of the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal near Tixall in Staffordshire, England, to the south of the former Tixall Hall.The lake was probably created during the construction of the canal in 1771. At that time, the hall was owned by Thomas Clifford, the fourth son of Hugh Clifford, 3rd Baron Clifford of Chudleigh, and the grounds had been designed on the advice of the landscape architect Lancelot "Capability" Brown. It is said Clifford "gave permission for the canal to pass through his land on the condition that it was made ... wide enough to look like a lake from the house". and thus in order not to spoil the view.The towpath is a very popular overnight mooring spot. Boaters moored here, or just passing through, have an excellent view of the magnificent Elizabethan gatehouse that is the only remaining part of Tixall Hall. It has also been suggested that the canal was routed to utilise a lake that already existed, in which the angler and writer Izaak Walton had learned to fish.

The Way for the Millennium is a 41-mile-long (66 km) east–west route across Staffordshire, deliberately designed for easy walking, using towpaths, old railway lines and footpaths and visiting attractive countryside and green spaces.

The Shugborough Tunnel is a 777-yard (710 m) railway tunnel on the Trent Valley line running under part of the Shugborough Estate in Colwich, Staffordshire, England. It was constructed in 1846 by the Trent Valley Railway (later the London and North Western Railway) and is located between Stafford station and Colwich Junction. Both portals, which were designed by John Livock, are grade II listed.The tunnel was built to hide the line at the insistence of Thomas Anson, 1st Earl of Lichfield, the landowner of the Shugborough Estate through which it passes, after negotiations with the railway company with options for diversion were also discussed. Shugborough Tunnel is the largest engineering work on the line.

Ingestre Hall is a Grade II* 17th-century Jacobean mansion situated at Ingestre, near Stafford, Staffordshire, England. Formerly the seat of the Earls Talbot and then the Earls of Shrewsbury, the hall is now owned by Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council and is in use as a residential arts and conference centre.

Milford and Brocton railway station served the villages of Milford and Brocton in Staffordshire, England from 1877 to 1950 on the Trent Valley line.

Ingestre is a village and civil parish in the Stafford district, in the county of Staffordshire, England. The population of the civil parish taken at the 2011 census was 194. It is four miles to the north-east of the county town of Stafford. Ingestre Hall is a local landmark. It was formerly served by both Weston and Ingestre railway station and Ingestre railway station. The village, and civil parish, of Tixall is nearby. The civil parishes of Tixall and Ingestre have shared a single parish council of Ingestre with Tixall since 1979.

Milford is a village in the county of Staffordshire, England. It lies at the edge of Cannock Chase, on the A513 road between Stafford and Rugeley. Just to the north of the village is the River Sow.

Staffordshire County Museum is housed in the Servants' Quarters of Shugborough Hall, Milford, near Stafford, Staffordshire, England. The museum features a restored Victorian kitchen, laundry and brewhouse as well as permanent galleries and temporary exhibitions.In November 2016, the management of the Shugborough Estate was returned to the National Trust and the museum at Shugborough was closed to the public. In March 2017, the estate was reopened by the National Trust including some of the displays which were part of the County Museum in the servants' quarters and farm. Staffordshire County Council intends in the future to move the County Museum Service to the planned new Staffordshire History Centre on the site of the Staffordshire Record Office.

Shugborough Hall is a stately home near Great Haywood, Staffordshire, England. The hall is situated on the edge of Cannock Chase, about 5.8 miles (9.3 km) east of Stafford and 4.7 miles (7.6 km) from Rugeley. The estate was owned by the Bishops of Lichfield until the dissolution of the monasteries, upon which it passed through several hands before being purchased in 1624 by William Anson, a local lawyer and ancestor of the Earls of Lichfield. The estate remained in the Anson family for three centuries. Following the death of the 4th Earl of Lichfield in 1960, the estate was allocated to the National Trust in lieu of death duties, and then immediately leased to Staffordshire County Council. Management of the estate was returned to the National Trust in 2016. It is open to the public and comprises the hall, museum, kitchen garden and a model farm.

The Shugborough Inscription is a sequence of letters – O U O S V A V V, between the letters D M on a lower plane – carved on the 18th-century Shepherd's Monument in the grounds of Shugborough Hall in Staffordshire, England, below a mirror image of Nicolas Poussin's painting the Shepherds of Arcadia. It has never been satisfactorily explained, and has been called one of the world's top uncracked ciphertexts.In 1982, the authors of the pseudohistorical The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail suggested that Poussin was a member of the Priory of Sion, and that his Shepherds of Arcadia contained hidden meanings of great esoteric significance. The book makes a passing reference to the Shepherd's monument and the inscription, but offers no solution. In 2003, Dan Brown copied many elements of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail in his bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code, but made no mention of the Shugborough inscription. However, the book led to renewed interest in The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. In 2004, Richard Kemp, the then general manager of the Shugborough Estate, launched a promotional campaign with the Bletchley Park Museum and two former Bletchley Park employees, Shiela Lawn and Oliver Lawn. The promotion of the event included repeated references to the idea that there could be a connection between the monument and the Holy Grail, based on the brief reference made to the monument in the pseudohistorical The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. Despite the fact that organisers of the event had their own favoured theories, no conclusive answer emerged.

Haywood Junction (grid reference SJ994229), or Great Haywood Junction, is the name of the canal junction where the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal terminates and meets the Trent and Mersey Canal near to the village of Great Haywood, Staffordshire, England.