Flash, Staffordshire - The Village

The Village

There was a silk mill at Gradbach from 1640 to 1840, with silk weaving and button making as cottage industries through the Parish. In the 18th century, a gang used button presses to make cointerfeit coins (hence the name "Flash Money") but some were hanged at Chester after a servant girl gave them away.

During the first half of the 19th century the population of he parish was around 700; it had been reduced to half this by the end of the 1800s. In 1851 there were 40 agricultural labourers, about the same number of silk workers, and almost as many colliers. There were also stonemasons, dressmakers, blacksmiths and cordwainers, and a shoemaker, errand boy, wheelwright, game-keeper, grocer, peddlar and tailor, as well as a number of house servants, 275 young people and 50 scholars. At one time 29 families were receiving weekly relief and 23 families occasional relief, nearly a quarter of the population.

The first record of coal mining in the parish comes from 1401 when Thomas Smith took a year's lease on the 'vein coal' of Black Brook, near Upper Hulme. There were a large number of coal pits in the area, including Orchard Common, Blackclough, Hope, Goldsitch and Knotbury. They were worked throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, and some into the early 20th century, for both commercial and domestic use.

As an isolated community, Flash has a small population and a school which houses 7 pupils. It formerly had a reputation for being a centre for illegal activities such as cock fighting and counterfeiting ('Flash money'). Prize fighting was said to have taken place at Three Shires Head.

According to some sources, the counterfeit money used to be exchanged at the nearby Three Shires Head (where Staffordshire, Cheshire and Derbyshire meet) on Axe Edge Moor.