Cannock
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Template:GBmap Cannock is a town in Staffordshire, just north of the West Midlands conurbation. It is on the A34 and A5, and sits to the south of Cannock Chase, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is administered as part of the Cannock Chase district, which has a total population of about 90,000. It lies just to the north of the Black Country (about 7 miles) and just south of Stafford (about 8 miles). It is within the county of Staffordshire and merges with Hednesford, Rugeley, Great Wyrley and Burntwood. Cannock is served by a railway station on the Chase Line.
Its name comes from the Old English cnocc, meaning small hill. It is first recorded in the unlikely form Chenet in the Domesday Book, probably due to the information being written down by a Norman scribe with less than perfect knowledge of English.
The town was very small until coal mining increased heavily during the mid to late 19th Century. The area then continued to grow rapidly with many industries coming to the area because of its proximity to the Black Country and because of its coal reserves. After the Second World War the town's population again increased and has kept on increasing ever since as many new residential developments are built as commuting areas for Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Walsall and Stafford.
Famous people from Cannock include Stan Collymore, Steve Bull, Richard Gosling (Strongest Man in Britain) and Glenn Hughes (former Deep Purple bassist/vocalist).
A romantic description of Cannock could be; 'a leafy countryside suburb of the more cosmopolitan West Midlands'. This would be due to its proximity and fairly decent transport links to the larger towns and cities surrounding it. For example, the United Kingdom's second largest populated city, Birmingham, can be commuted to by train in around 45 minutes.
Cannock is mainly an ethnically white conurbation, in comparison to her West Midlands neighbours. In recent years it has become far more affluent and seen a population and housing increase. In keeping with the national trend, Cannock’s housing is increasingly of a post-fordist era style, although various other periods of architecture are sited around the town.