Robin Hood country
Loxley
A small farming hamlet with an outsized outlaw tradition, shared village amenities and the vale of the Dove on its doorstep.
- Best for
- Local legend and quiet rural history
- Give it
- A half-day with neighbouring Bramshall
- Don't miss
- Doveridge's ancient churchyard yew
The Fox verdict
A tiny hamlet with a long memory
Come for Loxley's Robin Hood stories, then use neighbouring Bramshall and a few well-chosen nearby stops to shape the visit.
Loxley is farming country rather than a conventional visitor village: there is no pub, shop or church in the hamlet itself. Its appeal lies in the stories around Loxley Hall, the old Needwood Forest fringe and the Hodes recorded here in the thirteenth century, while Bramshall supplies the shared church, play area and trim trail, plus a nearby option for food and drink.
Where to go
Places in Loxley
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesBramshall Play Area and Trim Trail
A play area and trim trail beside the shared parish hall provide the clearest family recreation stop close to Loxley.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 60 minutes
- Locality
- off Church Croft, neighbouring Bramshall
Old Bramshall Inn
A neighbouring Bramshall pub on Stone Road, one of two named options for a drink or meal outside Loxley.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 60 minutes
- Locality
- Stone Road, neighbouring Bramshall
- Access
- Confirm the venue's current identity and food service before travel.
Alton Towers
The major nearby attraction is listed at roughly a 17-minute drive from Loxley.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 180 minutes for a focused visit
- Locality
- near Alton
- Access
- Check the Official site before travel.
Walks & outdoors
1 placeSt Cuthbert's Churchyard Yew
A hollow, iron-chained yew estimated at 1,400 years old, traditionally said to be where Robin Hood married Clorinda.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- St Cuthbert's churchyard, Doveridge
History & heritage
1 placeChurch of St Lawrence, Bramshall
The shared parish church was built in 1835 by Thomas Fradgley of Uttoxeter, with an ashlar exterior, slate roof and crenellated west tower.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- neighbouring Bramshall
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Three ways to explore Loxley
Signature outings
The Shared Church
Look from the crenellated west tower to the three-light east window at the church Loxley shares with Bramshall.
The Marriage Yew
Circle Doveridge's hollow, iron-chained yew, where tradition places Robin Hood's marriage to Clorinda.
The Nearby Headliner
Pair Loxley's quiet stories with the major attraction that the research places about 9.7 miles away by road.
The village story
Loxley Village Guide
A vanished horn, a recycled grotto and a stubborn local claim to England's best-known outlaw.
The Horn and the Grotto
A silver hunting horn used to hang at Loxley Hall, engraved with the initials R.H. and mounted on silver ferrules and chain, its shield carrying three horseshoes — the arms of the Ferrers family. Tradition called it Robin Hood's Horn. It disappeared during the Second World War, after American soldiers were billeted at the hall, and nobody has seen it since.
Further into the grounds, along the Long Walk, stands Robin Hood's Grotto, a folly knocked together around 1797 from parts of the old hall's facade when the place was rebuilt. It carries carved heraldry from two families who held the manor: a greyhound under a hawthorn for the Kynnersleys, a lion passant guardant for the Sneyds.
A Hamlet That Shares
Loxley itself has no pub. It's a farming hamlet on the edge of what was once Needwood Forest, and for a drink or a meal you head into neighbouring Bramshall, to the Old Bramshall Inn on Stone Road or the Butcher's Arms. There's no shop here either, no butcher, no bakery — the two villages share almost everything, including their church, St Lawrence's in Bramshall, built in 1835 by Thomas Fradgley of Uttoxeter, ashlar with a slate roof and a crenellated west tower, its altar rail dated to around 1700.
They share a parish hall too, off Church Croft, with a defibrillator bolted to the outside wall and a hall used for toddler groups, bowling, dance aerobics and Zumba depending on the evening. Next to it is a play area and a trim trail, which is about as far as Loxley's amenities extend, and about as far as they need to for a hamlet this size.
Fields, Hodes and the Manor
What Loxley has instead is farmland — fertile ground in the vale of the Dove, the River Tean running past on its way to join the Dove east of Uttoxeter — and a history disproportionate to its size. Local tradition, recorded by the nineteenth-century historians Erdeswich and Redfern, holds that Robin Hood was born here rather than at the better-known Loxley in South Yorkshire; a family called the Hodes, documented at Loxley in a thirteenth-century survey, are one candidate for the outlaw's real origin. Louis Rhead, writing in 1912, placed him living "on an estate near Locksley village, about two miles from the famous old town of Uttoxeter."
The Domesday Book recorded it as Locheslei, held by a man called Ascelin under Earl Roger of Shrewsbury. The manor later split into the two hamlets that exist now, Loxley Green and Lower Loxley, and the hall passed through the Kynnersleys for close to five hundred years before landing with the Sneyd-Kynnersleys. Loxley Hall still stands, Grade II* listed, Jacobean panelling inside dated 1607 — it's now run by Staffordshire County Council as a special school for boys.
Roads and the Marriage Yew
Uttoxeter station sits two or three miles away on the Crewe–Derby line, and the A50 and A518 do the rest of the work getting you here; there's no direct bus into Loxley itself. Alton Towers is under twenty minutes by car, and JCB's headquarters at Rocester is closer still.
Over the county border at Doveridge, in St Cuthbert's churchyard, there's a yew tree reckoned at 1,400 years old, hollow and iron-chained, its branches spreading 250 feet. Tradition says it's where Robin Hood married Clorinda. Nobody who tells you this expects you to believe it. They tell you anyway.
Stay around Alton Towers
Make a longer stay of it
Travel Fox holiday homes around Alton Towers, linked directly to their property pages.
Oakamoor
Christina's House
- Sleeps 4
- 2 bedrooms
Alton
Angel Cottage - 5 mins drive to Alton Towers!
- Sleeps 10
- 4 bedrooms
Alton
Smithy Bank Cottage - with free parking!
- Sleeps 8
- 3 bedrooms
Alton
The Old Post Office: Alton Towers
- Sleeps 8
- 3 bedrooms
Croxden
Zoe's Cottage - 7 mins drive to Alton + Alpacas!
- Sleeps 6
- 2 bedrooms
A guide with a point of view
Written from research. Edited for real journeys.
Use the Official site links for live practical details, then use this guide for context, ideas and room to explore.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- Church of St Lawrence, Bramshall — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Bramshall Play Area and Trim Trail — uttoxeterruralparishcouncil.gov.uk statutory register or public authority
- Old Bramshall Inn — uttoxeterruralparishcouncil.gov.uk statutory register or public authority
- St Cuthbert's Churchyard Yew — derby.anglican.org national body or asset manager
- Alton Towers — altontowers.com operator, sector body or destination organisation record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access