Three stone crosses stand in the churchyard at Checkley, south of St Mary and All Saints', and nobody is entirely sure why. They are Anglo-Scandinavian, roughly 1,300 years old. The tallest, at 1.6 metres, and the smallest, at 1.35 metres, are carved on all four sides with full-length human figures and interlace patterns; the middle cross, at 1.43 metres, is left plain. Local tradition says they mark the spot where three bishops were killed in a battle nearby. The more sober explanation: a preaching site, possibly used by St Bertelin, the hermit of Stafford, for open-air instruction.
Inside, the Norman font is carved with the Lamb of God resting on an altar. Ten centuries of wear have not been kind to it. "The lamb looks more like a donkey!" runs the local description on the parish trail, and once you've seen it you can't unsee it. The six bells were cast in 1761 and hung in an Elizabethan oak frame until 2016, when it was finally replaced with steel.
The village sits in the shallow valley of the River Tean, on what was once the main road between Cheadle and Uttoxeter — traffic ran through until a turnpike was built in 1822, and the A50 bypass in 1985 finished the job of quietening it down.
The Red Lion sits opposite the church on Church Lane, an old pub with a real fire near the door and a beer garden known locally as the Bay. Three regular cask ales are kept — Brains Rev James Original, Draught Bass, Timothy Taylor Landlord — plus a rotating guest. There's a Wednesday grill night, Sunday lunch, and weekend breakfasts, and dogs are welcome. It won Village Pub of the Year in 2013 and Pub of the Season later.
The New Broom, on the edge of the village on Uttoxeter Road, has had three names — the Cock Inn, then the New Inn, then, in the 1970s, the New Broom — and runs a carvery, cooked breakfasts and pizza alongside an attached campsite with a free shower block. The beer garden has a children's play area, and the pub advertises itself as ten minutes from Alton Towers.
Beyond the two pubs, Checkley keeps things simple: a self-serve kiosk, a playground, a village hall, and a cricket club at Four Trees. No butcher, no bakery, no corner shop — for that you'd head to Cheadle or Uttoxeter.
For walking, the Tean valley is the obvious start, and a few miles off, the ruined Cistercian abbey at Croxden offers a choice: a 2.5-mile family loop out to Hollington and back, or a hillier 7.25-mile circuit across open farmland.
The Domesday surveyors recorded the village as Cedla, held by a man called Otto, with three villans working land for three and a half ploughs, some woodland, two acres of meadow, and a value of five shillings — 25p today.
Blythe Bridge station, on the Crewe–Derby line, is 5.2 miles away, and local buses run to Hanley, Cheadle and Uttoxeter.
On a fine weekend the loudest thing in Checkley is likely to be the cricket club at Four Trees, or a handful of children on the playground behind the village hall — about as far as the village goes for entertainment, and it seems entirely content with that.
