Tittesworth

Tittesworth is a civil parish in the Staffordshire Moorlands, in Staffordshire, England. It extends from the edge of the town of Leek in the south-west to Blackshaw Moor in the north-east. In the east is the village of Thorncliffe. To the west is the civil parish of Leekfrith, where the boundary is the River Churnet.To the east is the civil parish of Onecote. Tittesworth Brook runs westwards through the area from Thorncliffe, and flows into the Churnet.The name Tittesworth is Old English: a personal name thought to be Tet, and the word for an enclosed settlement.The reservoirTittesworth Reservoir lies partly in Tittesworth and partly in Leekfrith. It was created in 1858 by the Staffordshire Potteries Water Works Co., by damming the River Churnet. The area was originally. Work to increase the area to was begun in 1959; the extended reservoir was inaugurated by Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon in 1962.The reservoir is now part of Severn Trent Water. It pumps on average 28 million litres of water per day to households and businesses.History of the estates near LeekThe south-west part of Tittesworth included what was originally the monastic grange of Fowker (later Fowlchurch) and estates at Ball Haye and Haregate. These estates, owned by Dieulacres Abbey, were granted by the Crown, after the Dissolution of the Monasteries, to Sir Ralph Bagnall in 1552. This area near Leek was rural until the 19th century, when, with the development of Ball Haye Green in the 1830s, it began to be a suburb of Leek.