The area has been mined for many years, with documentary evidence from Croxden Abbey citing coal mining in the 13th century.
In 1179, Bertram de Verdun, the lord of the manor of Croxden, endowed a site for a new abbey, and 12 monks arrived from the Savigniac Cistercian mother house of Aunay-sur-Odon in Normandy to build the new abbey over the next 50 years.
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, of the Manors of Litlam alias Littelham and Exmouthe belonging to the late Monastery of Shirbourne, Dorset, in as full manner as the last Abbot held the same; also the messuage formerly in the tenure of Katherine Lytton in the parish of St. Peter-the-Less, in the ward of Beynardes Castell in London; which messuage lately belonged to the late Monastery of Croxden, Staffs and is worth 26s.8d.