Cradley, Worcestershire

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Cradley is a small village in the "Black Country" of Worcestershire, near Halesowen and the banks of the river Stour. It was part of the ancient parish of Halesowen, but (unlike much of the rest of that parish (which was an exclave of Shropshire) was always in Worcestershire, until the creation of the West Midlands County in 1974.

There are two villages named Cradley in the Midlands of England; the "other" Cradley lies about 30 miles to the south, near to the Malvern Hills in south Worcestershire, but just across the county boundary in Herefordshire.

In the 1800s a new settlement grew up in heathland on the other side of the river, and became known as Cradley Heath. This was in the ancient parish of Rowley Regis. Previously the residents of Cradley had had the right to graze their animals of that heath, subject to a small annual payment to the lord of the manor.

Cradley is mentioned in a charter made by King Edred of England, King of the West Saxons (946 A.D. - 955 A.D.) in the year 950.

Wigar, the last of the Saxons, was the last lord to live within the manor. His house, which was very likely on the site of the old "Farther Leys Barn" (Fatherless Barn) was no doubt a timber built structure like a barn, his family living at one end while his servants and ceorls occupied the other where they slept on straw.

Cradley appears in the Domesday Book thus:

CRADELEIE. Pagan holds it under William son of Ansculf. Withgar held it. There is one hide, no part in Demesne, 4 villagers and 11 smallholders with 7 ploughs. The value was 40 shillings; now 24 shillings.

The manor of Cradley was bought and sold over the centuries, and also changed hands as a result of forfeiture and political favours. In 1473 it went to the Crown, and King Edward IV gave the largest part of it to his Queen. She had built a chapel, dedicated to Erasmus, the Dutch humanist, adjoining the abbey church at Westminster, and endowed it with the manors of Cradley and Hagley. In 1564, the Earl of Wiltshire's great grandson sold it, together with Oldswinford, Hagley and Clent, to Sir John Lyttleton of Frankley. The boundary of Cradley was re-surveyed in 1733 and has remained virtually unchanged ever since.

During the English Civil War, Parliamentary troops were quartered in Cradley.

Renowned typeface designer William Caslon is believed to have been born in Cradley in 1693, although there are those who maintain that he was born in Halesowen.

In 1770, John Wesley visited Cradley, and wrote:

"Monday, 19, March 1770 - I rode to Cradley (from Wednesbury). Here also the multitude obliged me to stand abroad, although the north wind whistled about my head. About one I took the field to Stourbridge. Many of the hearers were as wild as colts untamed; but the bridle was in their mouths. At six I began in Dudley. The air was as cold as I had almost ever felt, but I trust God warmed many hearts."

The local Anglican church, St. Peter's, was built by a group of Dissenters who gathered together to form the Independent Congregational Society. However, a special Act of Parliament (39 Geo. III. 1799), passed on 12 July 1799, took St. Peter's into the Church of England.

The Dissenting tradition remained strong, and many local Unitarian, Wesleyan, Methodist and Baptist churches flourished.

Cradley achieved prominence in the nineteenth century as a centre of iron chain making. The chain was made on a hearth by hammering cut lengths of red-hot wrought iron rod into oval links, one link passing through the next to form a cable.

Chain making was not the first or only iron trade carried on in Cradley and the neighbouring towns. For hundreds of years nails had been made in the Black Country, and many thousands of men and women were employed in the trade. It was the staple industry until the mid-1800s. Nail making by hand went into decline after the introduction of machine made nails in about 1830 and many nail makers adapted their smiths and forges, and redirected their skills to making chain.

Cradley is less famous for coal mining than chain making, but between 1850 and 1950 the collieries were no less important than the chain works in the local economy and for the legacy they left.

The coal mining and chain making that made Cradley famous are now in the past, and most of the other iron-based trades have declined to a shadow of their former selves.

The football player, Steve Bloomer was born in Bridge Street, Cradley on January 20, 1874.

Organisations and publications such as the Black Country Society and The Black Country Bugle keep the name of Cradley well-known to thousands of people.