Cradley, Worcestershire
Historical Description
Cradley, a town, a township, and an ecclesiastical parish in Halesowen parish, Worcestershire. The town is 2¼ miles ENE of Stourbridge, 4 S of Dudley, and 9½ SWof Birmingham, and has a station on the Birmingham and Stourbridge branch of the G.W.R. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Cradley Heath (S.O.), and carries on extensive manufactures in iron and hardware. There are also firebrick manufactories, and several coal mines are worked. The township includes Netherend, Colley Gate, Overend, Two Gates, and Colman Hill. Acreage, 818; population, 5709. The manor belongs to Lord Lyttleton. A saline spring, called the Lady Well, in much medicinal repute, is in a picturesque wooded vale. Coal and ironstone abound on the lands of Netherend. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Worcester; net value, o6291. Patron, the Eector of Halesowen. The church was repaired in 1874, and there are Baptist, Unitarian, Wesleyan, Primitive, and new Connexion Methodist chapels.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
Ancient County | Worcestershire | |
Civil parish | Halesowen | |
Hundred | Halfshire | |
Poor Law union | Stourbridge |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Cradley from the following:
Land and Property
The full transcript of the Worcestershire section of the Return of Owners of Land, 1873.
Maps
Online maps of Cradley are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Worcestershire papers online:
Visitations Heraldic
The Visitation of Worcestershire 1569 is available on the Heraldry page.