The village of Haughton has been awarded the best kept Large Village, in Staffordshire, for the last 3 years. I suspect this is a huge source of annoyance to the neighbouring village of Gnosall, the last, previous winner.
It was mainly because I wanted to go to the William Salt Museum, in Satfford to look at some books from the 1790s, which logged the meetings of the Rowley Regis Building Society, that we were staying here. I think they were the 13th, or 14th Society to be created and unlike the Building Society as we know it today, they were a group of individuals, who would meet once a month, in a pub and would order huge amounts of beef for a dinner. They would make a monthly payment into the society and between them would build a house, when completed a draw would beheld to see who would be given the first house. This would continue until, in this case, all 14 houses were built and the members each had a house. I knew that my 3 x great grandfather had been living in one of these Nailer's Cottages in 1841, together with his brother's family. Their surname was Ruston and from a newspaper article I once read, I knew a Ruston was one of the original members of the Building Society, 50 years earlier. So was fairly certain this would be my 4 x great grandfather.
It was really rather moving to read these hand written books, from more than 200 years ago and to see the X that Daniel Ruston made, as his signature.
There are two pubs in the village of Haughton and we walked, in the evenings, to The Bell. A good village pub with reasonable food. Our first night in there, we were sitting next to a group of people and suddenly everyone seemed to be getting their phones out. One of the party dropped to one knee and proposed marriage to the lady sitting next to him. She said yes and we all cheered and applauded. A lovely moment.
We hadn't gone to far from home on our first trip because on Friday, we needed to be at Malvern.
It does seem I will never quite stop my Husband from working!
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