Place:South Totmonslow Hundred, Staffordshire, England

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NameSouth Totmonslow Hundred
Alt namesSouth Totmoresource: A Vision of Britain through Time
TypeHundred
Located inStaffordshire, England

A map of the hundreds of Staffordshire from the Victoria County History of Staffordshire, provided by British History Online. Wikipedia also has a couple of maps on the page Totmonslow.

the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

South Totmonslow is one of the two divisions of Totmonslow or Totmore Hundred in Staffordshire. According to Wikipedia the hundred is named after the hamlet of Totmonslow (½ mile east of Draycott-in-the-Moors). The hamlet was anciently the seat of the hundred court. A Vision of Britain through Time gives the name of the hundred as Totmore.

The name of the place derives from Old English Tatmonn, a personal name, and hlaw meaning "hill" or "mound". Other examples of this personal name are recorded from the 10th century onwards (e.g. Roberto Tateman 1190–1200). A large number of Hundred names refer to hills or mounds. Some of these at least are very conspicuous hills, which afford a commanding view of the countryside for miles around. It seems likely that such sites were chosen for their remoteness, and where interference was most easily avoided.

The origin of the hundred dates from the division of his kingdom by King Alfred the Great into counties, hundreds and tithings. From the beginning, Staffordshire was divided into the hundreds of Totmonslow, Pirehill, Offlow, Cuttlestone and Seisdon. Each of these had two divisions--East and West in the case of Cuttleston, North and South for the other four.

Totmonslow is a large hundreds of Staffordshire, with an area of 169,788 acres (265 sq.miles) and a population of 50,050 in 1851. The hundred was divided into two divisions Totmanslow North and Totmanslow South by the Justices of the Peace, with areas of 100,234 and 69,554 acres respectively. Each had its own constable and Petty Sessions. The Petty Sessions for the South division were held at Ellastone.

Totmonslow, or Totmanslow, is the north-eastern Hundred of Staffordshire, and contains that mountainous region called the Moorlands, which adjoins and partakes of the general character of the Derbyshire Peak, abounding in lime and formerly coal. This bleak and alpine district exhibits many of the wildest and most stupendous features of nature, as well as some of her more chaste and fertile beauties, the latter of which are confined chiefly to the narrow and picturesque vales of the rivers Dove, Manyfold, Hamps, Tean, Blythe, Dane, and Churnet, which have their principal sources in this Hundred, and here receive many small but rapid streams from the high, peaty moorlands and rocky mountains which rise in picturesque disorder, and shut in the fertile pastures of the glens and valleys.

The Hundred has an irregular, oval shape, stretching from the three-shire stone, above Flash (Quarnford), southward to Uttoxeter, a distance of 25 miles, and averaging from 10 to 15 miles in breadth. The River Dove forms its eastern boundary for nearly 30 miles, and separates it from Derbyshire; and for about 10 miles at its northern extremity, it is divided from Cheshire by the River Dane. In the 19th century it contained four market towns, Leek, Longnor, Cheadle, and Uttoxeter, and about 80 townships located in 10 chapelries and 30 parishes.[7]

The importance of the hundreds declined from the 17th century, and most of their functions were extinguished with the establishment of county courts in 1867. In 1894 the Hundred was made obsolete with the establishment of urban districts and rural districts in Staffordshire.

The 10 chapelries were Elkstone, Flash (now known as Quarnford), Warslow and Longnor (all in the ancient parish of Alstonefield), Calton, extending into the parishes of Blore, Croxden, Mayfield and Waterfall, Butterton (Mayfield parish), Endon, Meerbrook, Onecote and Rushton-Spencer (all in the ancient parish of Leek).

Of the local government Districts created in the 1974 re-organisation, nearly all of the Staffordshire Moorlands District falls within Totmonslow Hundred, as does a substantial part of East Staffordshire including the town of Uttoxeter.

South Totmonslow Parishes

Reference

A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 7, Leek and the Moorlands. Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1996.