Huntington and Hatherton

Huntington and Hatherton are each small villages with rich mining history.

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Huntington Memorial Garden

Huntington

The name Huntington is thought to be possibly Anglo-Saxon in origin, with ‘ton’ meaning a hamlet grouped around a hunting lodge in a forest.

A medieval chapel, St Margaret-within-Cannock, was established around 1548 but the site now lies buried under the east slope of the former colliery spoil heap.

Another medieval feature is St Chad’s Ditch on the eastern edge of the parish along a line of the trees known as Huntington Belt. This ditch and bank possibly marked a boundary between who had hunting rights over different parts of the chase and that included the Bishops of Lichfield at St Mary and St Chads Cathedral.

Huntington, with a population of some 4,700, was once home to Littleton Colliery, which closed in December 1993. The site was the main employer for the village and surrounding towns and villages for 100 years. The colliery produced a million tonnes of coal in 1982 with 2,000 men.

Littleton Colliery, along with all collieries, was nationalised in in 1948 and was extensively modernised by the National Coal Board. It was the first colliery to use diesel locos underground. Its deep mine covered around 13 square miles of underground coal workings.

Littleton Colliery was the last colliery to close in the Cannock Chase Coalfield.

The story of Littleton miners is preserved in the photojournalism of Luke Unsworth who followed the 600 miners from their protest marches to their new careers after Littleton Colliery’s closure.

Huntington Parish Council constructed and opened the Memorial Garden on the former colliery site in 2019, with a redundant colliery winding wheel as the main feature. The names of former colliery employees and their jobs were inscribed on blue bricks on the supporting plinth.

The former Colliery Sports and Welfare Centre is now a bowling club, rugby club and Scouts headquarters.

The Littleton Arms was close to the colliery and is fondly remembered as ‘Coggers’, meaning a miner who built a stone wall or ‘cog’ from when it was a watering hole for mines.

Hatherton

Rural Hatherton, with a population of some 600 residents, and two village halls, has Shoal Hill Common and Chase Park in the parish.

Also within the parish is landmark The Four Crosses situated on the A5. The location is believed to be haunted – with reports including the sounds of unexplained footsteps, the apparition of a young girl, and he ghostly figure of a Roundhead soldier.

Other landmarks the A5 are two transport cafes, the Truckers Rest and The Hollies, well known to hauliers nationwide.

Hatherton is the main location for the West Midland Interchange.