Tutbury

A High Street Built for Conversation

The Cask & Pottle is a micropub in a former sweet shop at the end of the High Street. Its small room has no bar counter and a view of the stillage at the rear. It opened in October 2013 as East Staffordshire's first micropub. Its changing real ales give the room a different focus from a conventional pub bar.

The High Street runs towards the River Dove, with Hatton across the county boundary in Derbyshire. From Tutbury & Hatton station, the approach crosses the river and climbs towards the village. The wooded ridge above the northwest edge overlooks the floodplain.

The Dog & Partridge is a Grade II* listed High Street inn with substantial 16th- and 17th-century timber framing and later coaching-era additions. Its history is associated with John of Gaunt and the Liverpool–London coaching route. Today it trades as a Chef & Brewer pub, with guest rooms as well as food and drink.

The Cross Keys on Burton Street is a family-run free house with a separate dining room. Its extended rear patio looks across the Dove valley, and the pub serves food.

Pubs Along the Old Streets

The Vine Inn on Ludgate Street has a public bar, lounge, garden, darts and dominoes.

Further along Ludgate Street, the New Inn was bought by Black Country Ales, fully refurbished and reopened in August 2023 with twelve hand pumps — typically nine beers and three ciders, six of them rotating and often including something from Black Country Ales itself or a Titanic beer. The food side is simpler: locally sourced filled cobs, pork pies, sausage rolls, a cheese night, and a monthly Thursday curry night.

The Leopard on Monk Street occupies a building formed from four former cottages. Its long room has a pool table and photographs of old Tutbury. The Hourglass on the High Street adds to the village's choice of pubs.

Glassmaking and Norman Stone

Glassmaking shaped Tutbury's history. Tutbury Crystal's village factory was demolished in 2007; the separate Georgian Crystal works closed in 2011, while Tutbury Crystal now operates from Stourbridge and lists a contact address in Wordsley. Glassmaking remains part of the village's story.

The Grade I listed Priory Church of St Mary the Virgin has a richly carved Norman west doorway. Its second receding arch uses local alabaster dating from around 1160, an unusually early use of the stone on an exterior.

Much of St Mary's surviving fabric dates to the thirteenth century, while its Norman west front is older. A weathered carving above the south doorway shows a boar hunt. The north aisle was added in 1820–22, and George Edmund Street replaced the chancel and apsidal sanctuary in 1866. After the Dissolution, the priory buildings and part of the church were dismantled; the parish church remains as a link to Tutbury's former monastic complex.

Queens, Coins and Community Memory

The first Duke of Lancaster was created in 1351. In 1399 the Lancaster inheritance was set apart from other Crown possessions, and Tutbury Castle became the administrative centre of one of the Duchy's great estates. Mary, Queen of Scots was imprisoned at the castle during several periods between 1569 and 1585. After leaving Tutbury for Chartley, she became implicated in the Babington Plot of 1586.

The River Dove below the village holds another medieval story. The Tutbury Hoard was discovered in 1831, and estimates of its original size range from 100,000 to 300,000 silver coins. The Duchy Commission recovered about 1,500 coins for examination after most of the find had already dispersed. The examined coins were probably distributed among public and private recipients. The hoard's burial near the river has been linked to Thomas of Lancaster's defeat in 1322.

About 1.9 miles away in a straight line, on 27 November 1944, an RAF ammunition store at Fauld exploded — between 3,500 and 4,000 tonnes of high explosive going up at once, the largest explosion in British history, killing 70 people and leaving a crater 100 feet deep and over 1,000 feet across. The likely cause, an official inquiry concluded, was an airman using the wrong kind of chisel on a bomb detonator. The crater is still there, marked with a memorial.

Paths Along the Dove

The Park Pale earthworks mark separate stretches of Tutbury's medieval town boundary south and west of the centre; a footpath passes one section.

For anyone using Tutbury as a base rather than a destination, Alton Towers and Lichfield Cathedral — the only medieval English cathedral with three spires — are options for a day out. Buses run on the 401 route between Uttoxeter, Tutbury and Burton upon Trent; the station is on the Crewe–Derby line, a 15–20-minute walk from the centre, and the village itself sits just off the A50, four miles north of Burton.

Back in the village, old pub buildings and the wooded ridge give Tutbury's history a visible shape. Aubrey Bailey assembled a local history collection, while Bob and Jeanne Minchin compiled a family-history index running past 75,000 references across some 2,500 surnames.