It must be the beer, or could it be the Marmite which keeps bringing Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth back to Burton. The Queen has visited the area plenty of times in her reign and each time, the townsfolk of Burton have welcomed her with open arms.

The monarch's first visit took place on Thursday March 28, 1957, and encompassed a lengthy 23-mile Royal route from Sudbury Station to its termination at the famous archway of Repton School.

This visit to Burton was history in the making as Her Majesty became the first reigning Queen to grace the town with her presence.

After stepping off the Royal train, the Queen and Prince Philip were greeted by the Lord Lieutenant of Stafford, Mr H Wallace-Copland, and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Dr Charles Hill, while the two station waiting rooms were filled to the rafters with flowers.

After miles of country lanes and residential streets, the Royal party finally arrived at the town hall in King Edward Place.

A guard of honour was formed as the obligatory visitors' book and portrait were signed before the Queen and Prince Philip made their way to the town hall balcony to wave to the throngs of supporters.

During the Queen's visit in 1957, time was taken to plant a tiny horse chestnut sapling on The Green at Tutbury Castle. Her Royal Highness joked that she was unlucky with planting trees and said with a chuckle: "I don't appear to have very green fingers."

The Queen during one of her previous visits to the East Staffordshire area
The Queen during one of her previous visits to the East Staffordshire area

The horse chestnut sapling planted by the Queen in 1957 became an important part of the Monarch's next visit to the area on Friday July 23, 1982, when Her Majesty could see the now towering and majestic tree while planting yet another sapling at the castle grounds.

Despite the bunting and the crowds, the Queen's visit in 1982 was somewhat more stressful because a rail strike just weeks earlier put the entire event in jeopardy and a hand-written note discovered just minutes before the Royal party's arrival warned of a bomb left in a High Street building society.

Thankfully the visit went without a glitch but was slightly rushed because of a delays and a very tight timetable. Enthusiastic crowds in Draycott in the Clay had the pleasure of the Queen's visit for all of 45 seconds as the cavalcade of cars shot through.

It was a very different story when Her Majesty visited again on Tuesday December 7, 1995, and opened the town's new £34 million hospital which had centralised all of the town's hospital facilities on one site and had enabled the closure of the old General Hospital in the town centre.

Despite this being the Queen's seventh and final engagement of the day, her cherry-coloured coat with diamond shoulder brooch brought early Christmas cheer to both patients and staff.

After signing the visitors' book and pulling the curtains away on the commemorative plaque, the Royal party enjoyed tea in the hospital's Octagon Restaurant.

Here the Queen was faced with a giant 5ft by 3ft photograph of herself, to which she exclaimed: "What a colossal picture, where are you going to put it?" As the Queen had to stand to sign the photograph she said: "I can't write big enough for this picture".

The Queen and Prince Phillip meet the crowds at Burton Abbey Gardens
The Queen and Prince Phillip meet the crowds at Burton Abbey Gardens

While in Burton, the Duke of Edinburgh couldn't miss a visit to a brewery and so stopped off at the former Samuel Allsopps Brewery which was now under the name of Carlsberg-Tetley to lend a hand with the commemorative Royal Diamond brew.

But when head brewer Peter Sunderland offered the Duke the hops to throw into the brew, the Prince replied in his usual style, "You're paid to do it, you should put it in."

The Monarch's last visit to the area took place on Wednesday July 3, 2002, and was part of the golden jubilee celebrations.

Cheering crowds lined every yard of the Royal party's route as they drove slowly from the railway station via Station Street, Union Street and New Street to the Abbey Gardens, where Her Majesty met civic heads and tenants from her Duchy of Lancaster estate before unveiling a commemorative plaque and planting a lime tree to mark her visit.

Smiling throughout her two-hour stay in the town, the Queen frequently paused to speak to members of the public, some of whom had been waiting for hours to greet her.

Town centre streets were a mass of red, white and blue as businesses and private individuals threw themselves wholeheartedly into the spirit of the Royal occasion, with flags and buntings flying everywhere.

The year 2002 was a special year for all involved as it also marked the 1,000th anniversary of brewing in the town and the 25th anniversary of the Bass Museum opening.

The town's breweries always support the Royal Family with special commemorative brews and 2002 was no exception with the Queen and Prince Philip starting the mashing process for their own Royal Ale before Prince Philip gave one of the famous Bass shire horses a bucket of ale to slurp.

To enable The Queen and Prince Philip to see as much of the town as they could, they went their separate ways midway through the tour with the Queen heading to the Brewhouse arts centre in Union Street and the Duke to the Marmite factory in Wellington Road.

Not forgetting of course that her Majesty the Queen is also a frequent visitor to the National Memorial Arboretum at Alrewas. In May last year, The Queen visited the National Memorial Arboretum to officially unveil a monument to commemorate fallen personnel from the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment.

She stood beside the family and friends of those being honoured at the Service of Dedication, which saw a bronze 'lion of England' memorial unveiled in front of scores of visitors and service personnel. The Queen has also visited the memorial in 2011 and 2002.

Today Her Majesty is due to visit the Duchy of Lancaster's Needwood Estate, which is located on the outskirts of Burton.

The Duchy of Lancaster estate consist of 18,433 hectares of land across England and Wales and comprises commercial, agricultural and residential properties, the majority of which are in Staffordshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Cheshire and Lincolnshire.