Croxton

Old Roads, New Rhythms

Croxton Country Stores operates its CCS Guns shop at Croxton Service Station, selling shotguns, rifles, air rifles, ammunition and shooting accessories. The forecourt also sells petrol and diesel, so the village stop serves motorists as well as country-sports customers.

There's no pub in Croxton itself. The former Swan with Two Necks coaching inn survives opposite Boughey's Well as a long, low half-timbered building. Samuel Boughey later ran a bakery there, and the well took his name. For a drink, Eccleshall lies to the east and Loggerheads to the west. Norton Bridge station ceased passenger service in 2017; trains now run from Stafford and Stone.

Garden Walls and Lancet Light

About 1.1 miles from Croxton in a straight line is Sugnall Walled Garden, an 18th-century kitchen garden growing fruit, vegetables and flowers. Visits are arranged through the estate, with volunteers showing visitors around in return for a donation.

St Paul's church dates from 1854, a plain Victorian build rather than anything medieval. Three lancet windows depict St Stephen, St Paul and St John, and the organ, by Hill & Son of London, went in in 1873. Every couple of years it hosts the poetry and music concert that closes the well dressing festival.

Dressed Wells and Woodland Paths

The biennial well dressing festival links four village wells with natural materials pressed into clay-lined boards: Boughey's Well, the Slopping Well, the Cattery Well and Well No. 3. The June 2025 designs marked eighty years since VE Day and honoured the Women's Land Army and the Swynnerton munitions workers, known locally as the Swynnerton Roses. The 2025 festival cost over a thousand pounds to put on.

The 6.5-mile Heritage Trail passes Walk Mill Pool and Jackson's Coppice. A boardwalk crosses the marsh's flooded alder woodland, with bluebells in spring and changing colour in autumn.

Sandstone Heights and Older Names

Langot Lane lies amid Croxton's rolling sandstone hills and rocky outcrops. The River Sow rises near the village and flows through the Langot Valley.

Croxton turns up in the Domesday survey as Crochestone, in the hundred of Pirehill: ten households, three ploughlands, worth one pound a year to the Bishop of Chester. Four roads still meet at the village centre, on what was once the London-to-Chester coaching road. The windmill on Windmill Lane is Grade II listed; the former tower has since been converted for residential use.

A Village Kept in Common

The parish planted Millennium Wood and still checks on it every year as it matures. Every festival it fills with stalls and a barbecue. Liz and David Hemingway took over running the well dressing in 2025, from Ros and Ken Langford, who had done it for six festivals before them.