Official Name: | Hints |
Country: | England |
Region: | West Midlands |
Static Image Name: | Hints Church.jpg |
Static Image Caption: | St Bartholomew's Church |
Static Image Alt: | View of a plain church, with a bell-tower above the crossing |
Os Grid Reference: | SK1503 |
Coordinates: | 52.6233°N -1.7667°W |
Population: | 355 |
Population Ref: | (2011)[1] |
Post Town: | TAMWORTH |
Postcode District: | B78 |
Postcode Area: | B |
Dial Code: | 01543/0121 |
Constituency Westminster: | Tamworth[2] |
Civil Parish: | Hints |
Shire District: | Lichfield |
Shire County: | Staffordshire |
Hints is a small village and civil parish[3] between Lichfield and Tamworth in southeastern Staffordshire, within Lichfield local government district. The village is on the line of Watling Street, which was formerly the A5, but the A5 now runs in a cutting north of the village. The name of the parish council is Hints with Canwell.[4] The parish church is dedicated to St Bartholomew.[5]
The name Hints appears to derive from the Welsh word hynt, meaning 'a road' (referring to Watling Street). This suggests that the area was occupied by Welsh speakers until at least the late 6th century, when most of the Midlands had been occupied by the English.[6] The centre of Hints is situated 200 metres north of Bourne Brook (aka Black Brook), a western tributary of the River Tame, and nearby villages include Hopwas, Weeford and Drayton Bassett
Nearby Twycross Zoo was founded in 1963 by pet shop owners Molly Badham and Natalie Evans, after the pair's increasing zoological collection outgrew their three-quarter-acre site in Hints, Staffordshire
Physician and author Sir John Floyer (1649–1734) was born in Hints.