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Hartshorne gave England a great preacher and has in its church an unfortunate historian.
The first was George Stanhope, born in the village after Cromwell's day, a few years before his father became rector. He grew up to be a famous preacher, a bold critic, and a daring writer of Queen Anne's reign.
The historian was Stebbing Shaw, Hartshornes most pathetic rector, who followed his father in 1799 and was buried here in 1802. With Sir Egerton Brydges, he travelled much in Staffordshire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire, and together they edited the 'Topographer'. In 1788 he published a diary of his travels in Scotland but no one read it. His only popular book was about Cornwall, but he was always trying to write something that everybody would read, and his failures made him bitter. It was during his three years here that he wrote what was to have been a monumental history of Staffordshire, though only the first volume was published. A disappointed man, sometimes insane with grief, he walked about the rectory garden with his eyes to the ground; and often he would be found playing his fiddle to try to while away his melancholy.
His church was rebuilt in 1835, but it keeps a 15th century tower with a row of carved stones in an outer wall, one with arms, and two with figures of dogs. The lancet windows have tracery made of cast iron, and the west gallery has cast-iron columns.
The font is probably of the 14th century. A splendid old chest has nine iron clamps; two bells are older than the Reformation,and a silver paten, of about 1480 is one of the oldest pieces of plate in the county.
On a fine alter tomb lie the alabaster figures of Sir Humphry Dethick of 1599 and his wife. It was one of the Dethicks who went to Clewes to find a fourth wife for Henry VIII, and his son Sir William laid a pallof rich velvet on the coffin of Mary, Queen of Scots.
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