IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Stone Road, STAFFORD, ST16 1ND

The Antelope Inn was closed in 2011. A planning application was approved by Stafford Borough Council in 2014 for a private motorcycle museum on the ground floor with the first floor remaining as private residential accommodation. The building is on the junction of Stone Road and Charles Cotton Street.

One of several Co-operative stores in Stafford. The store is principally a food store with the additional services of a defibrillator, cash machine, outdoor recycling point, food bank and a bicycle repair station. The street is named for Charles Cotton a poet and friend of Isaak Newton author of The Compleat Angler

The image shows the southernmost part of Stafford Common. The Common is owned by the Stafford Common Land Trustees. It is used for car boot sales, horse and cattle grazing and recreation. Behind the line of trees on the right in a shallow cutting is the route of the former Uttoxeter-Stafford railway line opened in 1867 and closed in sections between 1939 and 1975. The final section between Stafford and the RAF Stafford supply depot was closed in March 1975, There was a station called Stafford Common in the far corner of the Common. Common Road runs at the eastern side of the Common where the industrial buildings can be seen.

Taken on the Stone Road, looking towards Stafford. I was standing beside a grassy area which I am told is Stafford Common, although that name does not appear on the map. It is used for enormous car-boot sales, amongst other things.

Looking across the Common from the Stone Road side. The Commons Registration Act 1965 defines common land as ‘land subject to rights of common (as defined in the Act) whether those rights are exercisable at all times or only during limited periods’, and ‘waste land of a manor not subject to rights of common’. Common land generally has open access rights for the public. Stafford Common extends to 62 ha.(approx 150ac.) and is regularly used for horse shows and car boot sales, hosts cross country running races and is well walked by local residents. It is also used for grazing cattle and horses. The trees to the right, along the southern edge of the Common, follow the line of the old Stafford to Uttoxeter branch railway. There was a small station, called Stafford Common, near the white buildings on the horizon where the track also sent out a spur to serve the nearby saltworks.

National Cycle Route 5 runs from Reading to Holyhead. Parts of it remain unspecified. The Isabel Trail is on the track bed of the former Stafford and Uttoxeter Railway between Doxey Road and Beaconside, Stafford which closed in 1975. The trail is named for Isabel, a narrow gauge locomotive built by Bagnalls of Stafford in 1897 and displayed on a plinth outside Stafford railway station from 1963. After restoration she is now in operation on the Amerton Railway