Tutbury is surrounded by the agricultural countryside of both Staffordshire and Derbyshire. The site has been inhabited for over 3,000 years, with Iron Age defensive ditches encircling the main defensive hill, upon which now stand the ruins of the Norman castle. These ditches can be seen most clearly at the Park Pale and at the top of the steep hills behind Park Lane. The name Tutbury probably derives from a Scandinavian settler and subsequent chief of the hill-fort, Totta, bury being a corruption of burh the Anglo-Saxon name for 'fortified place'. Tutbury Castle became the headquarters of Henry de Ferrers and was the centre of the wapentake of Appletree, which included Duffield Frith. With his wife Bertha, he endowed Tutbury Priory with two manors in about 1080. It would seem that Tutbury at that time was a dependency of the Norman abbey of St Pierre‑sur‑Dives. Quarries near Tutbury once produced Nottingham alabaster, used for monumental carvings. The Priory Church, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, has a unique west door with the only known alabaster arch in the country. One of the Royal Studs was established in the area round the castle by Henry VIII but had to be abandoned after the Civil War. Mary, Queen of Scots, was imprisoned in Tutbury Castle in 1569. Until the 18th century, Tutbury was the site of an annual Court of Minstrels. There was even a "King of the Minstrels" and an annual Tutbury bull run. There are some fine Georgian and Regency buildings and the half-timbered Dog and Partridge Hotel. There are antique and craft shops in the village, some of which have been run by the same families for many years. Tutbury and Hatton railway station was opened by the North Staffordshire Railway on 11 September 1848. It then closed during the 1960s but was reopened in 1989. It is on the Crewe to Derby Line. Until 2006, Tutbury Crystal, a manufacturer of high-quality cut glass products, was based in the village. However, production was transferred to Stoke-on-Trent as the existing factory was very old and was thought to be too small for the modern company's requirements. The old factory was demolished and flats were built on the site, but a factory shop still operates in the village. Despite this, the tourism trade survives thanks to the long history of the church and castle.
Ann Moore, the notorious "fasting-woman of Tutbury", claimed to have eaten nothing at all from 1807 to 1813, but her claims were eventually shown to be a hoax.
Benjamin Brook, an English nonconformist minister and religious historian, was the first pastor of the congregational church at Tutbury in 1801.
Walter Lyon, an English cricketer who played first-class cricket for Cambridge University between 1861 and 1863, moved to Tutbury in 1865 with his younger brother Charles to take over the cotton mill, and died in Tutbury.
John Henry Davies, a wealthy British brewery owner who took over Manchester United F.C., then called Newton Heath, in 1902, was born in Tutbury.
Thomas Richardson, a cricketer who played first-class cricket for Derbyshire in 1895, was born and died in Tutbury.
George Harris, an English footballer who played 71 professional games, became the landlord of a public house at Tutbury on retirement.
