Moddershall is a small village in the borough of Stafford in the county of Staffordshire, England, part of the civil parish of Stone Rural and ecclesiastical parish of Oulton with Moddershall. It is roughly halfway between the city of Stoke-on-Trent and the small town of Stone.
The geography of the area is defined by Scotch Brook, which after rising close to All Saints Church to the north of the village, runs round from the east of the village, then westwards and down towards its confluence with the River Trent.
Moddershall village is mentioned in Domesday Book.[1] During the 10th century, farming was the main activity, with the local redish-brown clay being used to create suitable building bricks, topped with slate roofs.[2]
The valley is best known and resultantly conserved as an early industrial revolution site, due to the number of mills within the valley. It is likely that corn mills existed in the valley from the 12th century, and evidence exists to show numerous mills during the Middle Ages.[2]
But it was not until 1720 that local potter John Astbury of Shelton discovered that adding heated and ground flint power to the local reddish clay could create a more palatable white or cream ware, that sold at higher volumes to the the normal North Staffordshire Pottery. Flint was sourced from either the Southcoast of England or France, and then shipped to the Port of Liverpool or Shardlow, near Derby on the River Trent.[2] After shipping to the mills on pack horse, it was sorted to remove the Flint with reddish-hues, and then heated to 1200 degrees centigrade to create an easily ground product. However, the grinding process produced a fine siliceous dust, that after adhering to the workers lugs resulted in cases of silicousis, similar to the condition of penumoconiosis suffered by coal miners. The result was that workers tried to do anything but flint grinding.[2]
All Saints Church was built from local stone in 1904 by the Wedgwood family.[3] According to the 2001 UK census, the population of the parish was 947. The entire Moddershall Valley is now part of a signated Conservation Area.[2]