Rocester

Steel Landmark and Village Pub

A steel digger bucket welded into the shape of a running figure stands 45 feet high on the edge of the village, 36 tonnes of scrap parts arranged by Polish-born sculptor Walenty Pytel in 1979. JCB's chairman Anthony Bamford commissioned it, called it Fossor, and it was briefly the largest steel sculpture in Europe. It marks the entrance to JCB's world headquarters, which has operated from Rocester since 1970.

The Red Lion is the pub to know. Three rooms, flagged floors, wooden panelling, a snug you could disappear into. The wagyu burger and the hunters chicken get singled out by regulars, along with something on the menu called a steak baguette; nobody publishes the prices. Two regular cask ales, Ringwood Razorback and Marston's Pedigree, plus a rotating guest. One reviewer titled their write-up "a bit of Black Country in Staffordshire." Dogs get treats at the bar, and the beer garden has a covered section and a TV for football.

A Lost Pub and Daily Essentials

There used to be a second pub. The Queens Arms on Church Lane closed and became a house, though the building — late-18th-century red brick, Grade II listed — still carries a blocked panel where the sign used to hang.

For groceries there's the Premier store on the High Street, which also houses the Post Office.

Old Stone and Walking Lines

St Michael's Church keeps its 13th-century tower from an older building; the rest was rebuilt in 1870–72. More striking is the churchyard cross out front, a quadrilobe-shafted stone shaft about 20 feet high, predating the church by six centuries and Grade II* listed in its own right.

Walkers are well served. The Staffordshire Way runs south along the Dove Valley to Uttoxeter, past the site of the old Roman fort. Rocester also sits at the southern end of the Limestone Way, 46 miles of footpath running up to Castleton in the Peak District, and there's an easy 8.8-mile loop to Ellastone via Denstone. Shorter still is the JCB Lakeside Walk, a flat paved circuit around the company's ornamental lakes, under an hour, with waterfowl on the water most of the year.

From Fort and Abbey to the Romans

The village occupies a triangle of land where the Churnet meets the Dove, which is roughly why the Romans built a fort here around 69 AD, garrisoned for over a century before locals moved in. An Augustinian abbey went up on the same ground in the 1140s and lasted until Dissolution in 1538. In 1781 Richard Arkwright bought the old corn mill on the Dove and turned it water-powered for cotton; the building later became the JCB Academy. Domesday recorded the place twice over as Rowcestre, split between the king's land and Henry of Ferrers's, one holding falling in value from £8 to £2 between 1066 and 1086.

Graeme Edge, drummer and songwriter with the Moody Blues, was born here, as was footballer Ryan Boot. Rocester F.C., known as the Romans, play at the Hillsfield ground on Mill Street — built on part of the old fort, next to Arkwright's mill.

Arriving and Looking Outward

The village's own railway station shut in 1965; the nearest working one is Uttoxeter, six miles down the B5030. Alton Towers is about five miles the other way, ten to twelve minutes by car — though most people who stay here are happy enough with the lake, the dog treats, and the birds.