There are many instances where places of present-day importance are apparently not entered in Domesday: e.g., Newcastle. Apparently - for manors are sometimes surveyed under the heading of another manor. Draycott-in-the-Moors is a case of apparent omission. It is worth a brief note, since Eyton failed to trace it in Domesday, probably because even his wonderful geographical knowledge of the County was not sufficiently minute. There can be little doubt that Draycott was surveyed under another name, i.e., Niewtone. In Totmonslow Hundred there is a long list of waste vills, among which are two - Niewtone and Lufamsles - which Eyton noted as "obsolete: they have not reappeared except that Erdeswick called the former Newton ...... The record names both places together between 'Cedla' (which is part of Checkley) and 'Fotesbroc' (which is Forsbrook in Dilhorne parish). The neighbourhood of Cheadle would thus seem a likely quarter wherein to search for some possible relics of these local names."
General Wrottesley, in his annotations of Draycote Charters, conjectures that "the name doubtless survives in the name of a farmhouse or wood or other local feature."
Newton to-day is one of three hamlets which go to form Draycott-in-the-Moors ecclesiastical parish. It lies half a mile south of the Roman road which bisects the parish from east to west: it consists now of two farmhouses. The whole parish though extensive has less than 400 inhabitants.
It is not difficult to account for the decline of the parent settlement and its subordination to Draycott village, which to-day has church, post office and public-house. At the Conquest the whole area fell out of cultivation: there was considerable, if not complete, evacuation of the population. When, therefore, the new Norman owner took possession he had free scope for a new village planning.
Unfortunately, the Draycott Tithe Schedule omits all field names, and therefore it is not possible to trace with certainty the old common fields which in all probability lay in much closer relationship with Newton than with Draycott.
It remains now to put "Lufamsles" on the map.
By S. A. H. Burne: Taken from "North Staffordshire Field Club Transactions 1915-16."
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