A market town in the western parliamentary division of Staffordshire, England, on the river Trent, 7 m. N. of Stafford by the North Staffordshire railway. Pop. of urban district (1901), 5680. Part of the walls and crypt remain of an abbey which dates from the foundation of a college of canons in 670. The church of St Michael dates from 1750, the abbey church having collapsed in the previous year. Alleyne's grammar school is a foundation of 1558. The chief industry is shoemaking, but malting, brewing and tanning are also carried on. At Bury Bank, on the hills to the north, an earthwork is traditionally considered to be the site of the capital of the Kingdom of Mercia; there are other works in the neighbourhood at Saxon Low.