The name Branston is Old English and means an estate belonging to a man called Brant, a personal name of Scandinavian origin.

In 942, King Edmund granted an estate at Branston to Wulfsige the Black, possibly an ancestor of Wulfric Spot, the founder of Burton Abbey, and in 1066 it was held by Godgifu (Lady Godiva), the widow of Leofric, Earl of Mercia.

It presumably stood on the site of the present inn of that name at the southern end of the modern village, and took its name from the nearby toll-gate set up after the Burton-Lichfield road was turnpiked in 1729.

[7] The factory was not completed, however, till after Armistice Day; it was equipped with machinery from the USA, but was never used for manufacturing weapons (though around a thousand guns were reconditioned there in 1919).

[7] Crosse & Blackwell made a successful £612,856 bid to acquire the factory site, which they pledged to turn into the largest and best equipped food preserving plant in the British Empire.

[7] It continued as a government facility thereafter, however, first as a civilian-run Ordnance Stores and Disposals Depot (until 1975), then as a depot for the Supply and Transport branch of the Home Office, under whose auspices it stored items ranging from Green Goddess fire engines to furniture, clothing and other items for the Prison Service.

[7] Since the 1990s parts of the site have been leased for warehousing or sold for housing; but a substantial area remains in use as a storage facility for the Ministry of Justice and HM Prison Service.