Feckenham, Worcestershire
Historical Description
Feckenham, a village and a parish in Worcestershire. The village stands near the boundary with Warwickshire, 5 miles SW of Redditch, and 7 E by S of Droitwich. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Redditch.
The manufacture of pins, needles, and fish-hooks is carried on. The parish comprises the hamlets of Astwood Bank, Hunt End, and Callow Hill, and part of Crab's Cross and Headless Cross. Acreage, 6987; population of the civil parish, 4584; of the ecclesiastical, 3544. The manor belonged to the Culpeppers and the Hanburys, and is now in the hands of the Earl of Coventry. A forest anciently covered a large part of the area. It was cleared in the reign of Charles I. Dunstall Court is a handsome modern house, John de Feckenham, last Abbot of Westminster, and Dean of St Paul's in the reign of Mary, was a native. The living is a vicarage, to which is united Astwood Bank, in the diocese of Worcester; net value, £245 with residence. Patron, Trustees. The church is ancient, and was restored in 1867. Headless Cross forms a separate ecclesiastical parish. There is a chapel of ease at Astwood Bank. There are Free Methodist, Baptist, and Wesleyan chapels.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
Ancient County | Worcestershire | |
Ecclesiastical parish | Feckenham St. John the Baptist | |
Hundred | Halfshire | |
Poor Law union | Alcester |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The register dates from the year 1538.
Churches
Church of England
St. John the Baptist (parish church)
The church of St. John the Baptist is a building of stone, in the Geometric Decorated style, consisting of chancel, nave, north aisle, south porch and a low embattled western tower with 4 pinnacles, containing a clock and 8 bells: the tower was restored in 1903, at a cost of £251 by Mr. Ford Whitcombe A.R.I.B.A.; the chancel was rebuilt about 1853, under the direction of Mr. Butterfield, and the south wall and nave roof and porch were reconstructed in 1866-7: the stained east window in the chancel is a memorial to George Webb esq. of Astwood Court, and there are others to Mrs. Lucy Haywood, Miss Clara M. Gutch and Mrs. E. W. Haywood, of Sillins: there was formerly in the chancel an altar-tomb with recumbent effigies of a knight and his lady and figures of three children, erected by Lady Joyce Culpeper, and inscribed to Sir Martin Culpeper, of Deane, in the parish of Spelsbury, county Oxon, her husband, who died 26th June, 1604; this monument, it is stated, was, on the rebuilding of the chancel, buried beneath the floor: the interior of the church was thoroughly restored in 1904, when the old gallery was taken down, the total cost being about £1,000: a new organ loft and organ were erected in 1907 at a cost of about £220: there are sittings for 261 persons.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Feckenham from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Feckenham (St. John the Baptist))
Land and Property
The full transcript of the Worcestershire section of the Return of Owners of Land, 1873.
Maps
Online maps of Feckenham 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:
Villages, Hamlets, &c
Crabs CrossHam Green
Visitations Heraldic
The Visitation of Worcestershire 1569 is available on the Heraldry page.