Aldridge, Staffordshire
Historical Description
Aldridge, a village and a parish in Staffordshire, 3½ miles NE of Walsall, with a station on the M.R., and a post office under Walsall. The collieries of the Albridge Colliery Company and several other collieries are situated here, and also brick and tile works. Acreage, 2939; population, 2206. A height called Barr-Beacon is said to have been a place of Druidical sacrifices; and a pool called Druid Mere makes an occasional overflow, and was formerly popularly imagined to possess some supernatural quality. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Lichfield; net value, £378 with residence, in the gift of St John's College, Cambridge. The church is an ancient stone edifice, rebuilt in 1853; it contains some good monuments.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
Ancient County | Staffordshire | |
Ecclesiastical parish | Aldridge St. Mary | |
Hundred | Offlow | |
Poor Law union | Walsall |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The register dates from the year 1660.
Findmypast, in association with the Staffordshire & Stoke on Trent Archive Service have the Baptisms, Banns, Marriages, and Burials online for Aldridge
Churches
Church of England
St. Mary (parish church)
The church of St. Mary is an edifice of stone chiefly in the Perpendicular style, consisting of chancel, nave, aisles, north porch, and an embattled western tower of the Decorated period, containing a clock and 5 bells: in 1853 the church was enlarged, the north aisle and chancel rebuilt, the interior entirely re-seated, and the western arch opened: the east window and several others are stained: an organ was placed in the church in 1896: in the south wall of the chancel is an ancient recumbent stone effigy, supposed to represent Nicholas de Alrewicke (temp. Hen. III.), the founder of the church, and at the west entrance under the tower is another effigy in chain armour, cross-legged, with helmet and sword, and supposed to commemorate Robert Stapleton, who served in the last Crusade, 1269; there are also other monuments, and the church affords 540 sittings.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Aldridge from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Aldridge (St. Mary))
Land and Property
A full transcript of the Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Staffordshire is online.
Maps
Online maps of Aldridge 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 Staffordshire newspapers online: