Weston Park

The Church of St Andrew, Weston-under-Lizard, Staffordshire is a Grade I listed Anglican church. Its origins are medieval, but it was largely rebuilt in the very early 18th century by Elizabeth Wilbraham of Weston Park, and restored in the 19th century, firstly by George Edmund Street and then by Ewan Christian. It remains a functioning parish church in the Diocese of Lichfield.

Weston-under-Lizard is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Blymhill and Weston-under-Lizard, in the South Staffordshire district of Staffordshire, England. It is known as Weston-under-Lizard (the name of a hill in nearby Shropshire) to distinguish it from Weston-on-Trent. It should not be confused with the village of Weston, to the north east of Stafford. In 1961 the parish had a population of 294. On 1 April 1986 the parish was abolished and merged with Blymhill to form "Blymhill and Weston-under-Lizard".The village is on the A5 (here following the course of Watling Street), and is very close to the county boundary with Shropshire. Nearby places are Blymhill, within Staffordshire, and Tong in Shropshire. To the south of the village is Weston Park the ancestral home of the Earls of Bradford and the venue for the V Festival. Associated with the Hall, there is the parish church of St. Andrew, where Honora Sneyd was buried. A variation in the spelling of the village name may be seen in an old Law record.

Blymhill is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Blymhill and Weston-under-Lizard, in the South Staffordshire district, in the county of Staffordshire, England. It has a church called St Mary's Church. In 1961 the parish had a population of 459. On 1 April 1986 the parish was abolished and merged with Weston-under-Lizard to form "Blymhill and Weston-under-Lizard".

The Elder Well is a holy well located at Blymhill Marsh, close to the village of Blymhill, Staffordshire. It can be found among Elder trees on the north side of the Holy Well plantation. The well is a spring that emerges into a sandstone structure set into the ground. The structure is approximately 1 m square and 70 cm in depth. The well was said to be blessed with medicinal properties and in particular to be a remedy for afflictions of the eyes. Hope states that it was "annually dressed with flowers and branches of trees, and rustic games and amusements [were] indulged in by those attending." The well is mentioned frequently in old gazetteers. The earliest known reference is in the great Natural History of Staffordshire by Robert Plot. He writes as follows: And amongst these [curative waters] must be reckon'd all sorts of Eye-waters, such as that of Elder well betwixt Blymhill and Brineton, and many others of the kind all over the Country.

Blymhill and Weston-under-Lizard is a civil parish in the South Staffordshire district of Staffordshire, near the border with Shropshire in England. According to the 2001 census, it had a population of 654, increasing to 823 at the 2011 census. The parish includes Blymhill, Weston-under-Lizard, Brineton, Brockhurst and Orslow. In medieval times, the manor was held by the Brereton family, baronets of Handforth, Cheshire. Charles Brereton, the grandson of Sir William Brereton, 1st Baronet and son of William Brereton, the 2nd Baronet, lived at Blymhill and died without direct heirs in 1674. He was succeeded by his niece Mary Levett, daughter of his sister Susanna and husband of John Levett, barrister of the Inner Temple.The parish was formed on 1 April 1986 from "Blymhill" and "Weston-under-Lizard".

The Bromsgrove Sandstone is a geologic formation of the Sherwood Sandstone Group in England. It preserves fossils and ichnofossils of Chirotherium barthii, and Chirotherium sickleri, dating back to the Middle Triassic (Anisian) period.

St. Mary's Church, Blymhill is an Anglican church in the village of Blymhill, Staffordshire, England (grid reference SJ808122). The building, which is a Grade I listed building, was constructed in the 14th century and restored and extended in the 18th and 19th centuries. It features an Early English south aisle, a Decorated Gothic chancel and a Perpendicular Gothic tower.

Brineton is a hamlet in Staffordshire, England. It is 3/4 mile north of the village of Blymhill, and is within the civil parish of Blymhill and Weston-under-Lizard. Its name is derived from the Anglo Saxon term for "Bryni's settlement". The hamlet contains the 17th-century Brineton House, and Laurel Farm, a brick house built in 1678.

White Sitch is a 19th Century designed landscape by John Webb containing a picturesque reservoir in the middle, one mile west of Blymhill in Staffordshire, England. It is situated in a tract of cropped and mixed woodland currently owned by Bradford Estates. The woods are used for commercial plantation forestry and the reservoir for commercial carp fishing.

Brockhurst is a hamlet in Staffordshire, England, 1 mile sorth-west of Blymhill. It is part of Blymhill and Weston-under-Lizard civil parish within South Staffordshire district.Today the hamlet consists of Brockhurst farm, a red brick 18th farmhouse, and two blocks of semi-detached houses built in 1954. The buildings rest on the site of a much earlier settlement, as evidenced by medieval earthworks. These include a square moat to the south-eastern side of the farmhouse, with raised mound within, and the line of a second moat seventy-five yards to the south-west.Raven speculates on the origin of the name 'Brockhurst': 'Broc' in a place name usually means either stream or badger. 'Hurst' can mean either a wood or a hill, or a wooded hill or even a sandbank in a river. As there are no streams, hills or sandbanks here it might be fair to interpret the name 'Brockhurst' as meaning 'the wood (or clearing in the wood) which has a badger sett'.

Tong Castle was a very large mostly Gothic country house in Shropshire whose site is between Wolverhampton and Telford, set within a park landscaped by Capability Brown, on the site of a medieval castle of the same name. The original castle was built in the 12th century. During the Civil War it was defended for the King by William Careless, and afterwards by George Mainwaring. The original structure was demolished in 1765 after the estate had been purchased by George Durant from the Duke of Kingston who built the house illustrated. The building has been described both as an "architectural mongrel" and more flatteringly as "the first real gothic building in Shropshire". While at first glance there appear some anomalies of design, such as the ogee domes which, though Gothic in shape, are more redolent of the English Renaissance style, the house was actually in the Strawberry Hill Gothic style popularised by Horace Walpole. George Durant bought the estate at Tong in 1764 and commissioned Lancelot "Capability" Brown to provide plans for rebuilding the castle and to improve the landscape around the castle in 1765. Brown's account book shows a charge to Durant in 1765 for "Various Plans for the alterations of Tong Castle. My Journeys there several times" covering both the house and grounds, and making it Brown's first commission in Shropshire. Water features north and south of the castle were altered to create Church or North Pool and the serpentine South Pool and two larger lakes were added built following Capability Brown's plans. The kitchen garden was moved further from the house and it is suggested that Brown was responsible for installing an ice house. The Tudor Tong Castle was remodelled in the Gothic style, only retaining the main block of the 16th Century red-brick castle. Some of the stone from the college that had stood near Tong church was reused in the new building.Walpole's Gothic house at Strawberry Hill was begun in 1749, expanded in 1760, and completed in 1776. Thus the comparatively early date of 1765 for Tong Castle to be erected in this fairly rare style would today have made Tong of the highest architectural grading class. The crenellated towers and pediments coupled with the paned, rather than traditional Gothic leaded, windows crowned by ogee curves are typical of this style, as too are the generous bay windows with circular windows and cruciform motifs in the upper levels. The later 19th-century Gothic tended to be more ecclesiastical and sombre in mood, with dark rooms lit by lancet windows while the earlier Gothic had larger windows and a "joie de vivre" of design not found in later versions of the style. In 1756, Maria Fitzherbert (born Mary Ann Smythe) was born in Tong Castle, reputedly in the Red Room, when it was still owned by the Duke of Kingston; she may have been his illegitimate daughter. Mrs Fitzherbert eventually married George IV (when he was the Prince of Wales) after being twice widowed. She died in Brighton in 1837 without being formally recognised as George IV's wife due to her Catholic lineage and that official sanction to the marriage had not been given by George's father, King George III.The house passed from the Durant family in 1854 to the Earl of Bradford. The Earl had no wish to live at Tong but expanded his estate in the area and let the house, chiefly to the Hartley family of Wolverhampton who leased it between 1856 and 1909.In 1911 the house was damaged by fire and remained unrestored and increasingly structurally unstable until demolished in 1954, and the site is currently part of the route of the M54 motorway. Features of Capability Brown's work can still be seen at Tong, including foundations of the castle, Church Pool and clumps of oak and beech trees.Flagstones from Tong Castle were used for paving at the outdoor war memorial built in 1920 at the nearby village of Albrighton.Tong Castle is a Grade II Listed site for its special architectural or historic interest and its Historic England List Entry Number is 1176612. Tong Castle was first listed on 29 August 1984.

The Collegiate Church of St Bartholomew, Tong (also known as St Bartholomew's Church) is a 15th-century church in the village of Tong, Shropshire, England, notable for its architecture and fittings, including its fan vaulting in a side chapel, rare in Shropshire, and its numerous tombs. It was built on the site of a former parish church and was constructed as a collegiate church and chantry on the initiative of Isabel Lingen, who acquired the advowson from Shrewsbury Abbey and additional endowments through royal support. Patronage remained with the lords of the manor of Tong, who resided at nearby Tong Castle, a short distance to the south-west, and the tombs and memorials mostly represent these families, particularly the Vernons of Haddon Hall, who held the lordship for more than a century. Later patrons, mostly of landed gentry origin, added further memorials, including the Stanley Monument which is inscribed with epitaphs said to be specially written by William Shakespeare. The church was the site of a minor skirmish during the English Civil War and also hosts the grave of Little Nell from Charles Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shop, despite the character being entirely fictitious. The building is grade I listed and had its lead roof replenished with steel during 2017 to deter thieves. Due to its many monuments inside the church and ornate architecture, it is sometimes labelled as The Westminster Abbey of The Midlands, often featuring as one of the best churches in The Midlands and in England.