In 1986 a team of volunteers undertook a programme of field walking looking for evidence of mediaeval habitation surrounding St. James's church.

No such evidence was forthcoming however amongst the debris collected were sherds of pottery clearly not mediaeval but dating from a much earlier time what the volunteers had discovered was   Roman.

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An occasional series that explores Stafford's pre-history and the lives of the people who lived in what are today the villages and hamlets that surround our county town.

Fourteen thousand years ago the countryside was covered by ice, nothing grew, there were no animals and no people this was the last great ice age.  Twelve thousand years ago the climate warmed the ice melted and the glaciers retreated and year by year the plants and trees returned as did the insects, birds and animals and finally humans - our earliest ancestors . 

In the late 1970s a group of archaeologist visited the village of Aton Trussell five miles to the south of Stafford. Their purpose was to carry out investigations at the Moat House  Hotel a late mediaeval building undergoing major construction work.

An unusual feature of Acton Trussell is the location of the church (St. James) which stands on high ground some half mile from the nearest settlement,  early historians suggested that Acton Trussell was a shifted village, that at some date in the distant past the lord of the manor when building his fine new house, the Moat House?, cleared the area around St. James' and evicted the peasants. perhaps they were spoiling his view!

Whatever the truth of the story it was decided to test the theory by searching the surrounding fields for evidence of habitation in the distant past, the results changed everything that was known about the history of Acton Trussell.  

ACTON Trussell 

From the old English "ton" Anglo Saxon 6th. c  a settlement or farmstead.

"ac" oak = Acton  settlement amongst oaks.

Trussell was added in the 16th century being the name of the principle landowner of that time.

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