Welcome to Chaddesley Corbett

We hope that you enjoy a brief tour of this picturesque Worcestershire village.

   Map image produced by the Ordnance Survey Get-a-map service. 
O.S. Image reproduced with kind permission of Ordnance Survey and Multi Media Mapping.
Leaving the busy A448 Bromsgrove to Kidderminster Road, opposite Brockencote Hall Hotel, we turn into Chaddesley by its celebrated Horse Chestnut Tree (close to St. Cassian's Church), here showing its late summer colours - our first indication of the change in the season.

    The village church is dedicated to Saint Cassian and is the only church to this particular Saint in the U.K.
The church has a lofty steeple which contains a fine peal of eight bells (of which the Tenor weighs 16cwt and a quarter = 850 kgs) but which can also be rigged and played as a Carillon. There is a separate Sanctus Bell. 
"The bell ringers meet every Wednesday at 7:45pm and anyone who cares to visit is most welcome." 
Contact the Tower Captain - Nicola Beaumont - for further details. 
The clock mechanism strikes the quarters as well as the hours and can be heard throughout the parish. 
There is an excellent Three manual Organ with a newly installed case which is located in a raised position, above the West Door.

    Alongside the church is Lodge Farm. Next door is Dial Park, famous for it's displays of Snowdrops in early Spring when visitors come from all over the country to see the carpet of 'February's Fair Maidens' when the garden is opened to the public. Later in the year as the season progresses, other Open Days are held to show the garden and grounds in an ever-changing light.

On the opposite side of the road the fields show traces of the earthworks of the medieval fish-ponds and 'stews'; a tradition which is still maintained in the small dams and ponds which can be seen along Hockley Brook (sometime known as 'Rum Alley' brook) and other local streams, where small lakes have been formed for flocks and herds to water and for fishermen to come for sport.

    Between the Church and the School (Chaddesley Corbett First [Endowed] School) -  for children aged from 4 through to 8 years of age - is LychGate House.
Of particular interest, for architects and historians, is the Georgian facade and the Bricked-up Window above the front door, both seen in this picture.

The front elevation of the house, built of brick with stone cornices, is 'modern' by Chaddesley standards. It displayed the fashionable style of the mid 1700's, just before the imposition of a tax on the number of windows in a property (hence the eradication of this window - and one on the side facing the church - to lower the tax burden).

    This is the view along the main street, known as "The Village".

We are standing with "The Fox" behind us, with "The Talbot" immediately on our right, which is run by Hilary and Rupert Boden   (serving Masston's & Banks' Beers) and with "The Swan" on the left-hand-side just up-ahead.
The Talbot, an inn with Elizabethan origins, has the 'Talbot' white dog -  - the symbol of the Chetwynd family  (The Earls of Shrewsbury) - on it's sign.

Three inns, together with the Village Stores and Post Office, a butchers/green-grocers, a hair-dresser and a beautician, a 'designer' dress shop; with a Spar grocery at Jim Callow's garage, and several Farm shops, all mean that Chaddesley is well supplied with most of it's needs.

    These views show the wealth of Black and White or Half-Timbered houses in Chaddesley.
They are built with wooden frames, with the panels 'in-filled' with wattle-and-dawb or (for those who could afford it) with small hand-made bricks placed in a 'herring-bone' fashion.

    Originally painted in a variety of bright colours, tradition now maintains a more formal white-rendered appearance with wooden beams grown dark with age.

     We end our walk along "The Village" by calling at "The Swan" - it's where we all end up, eventually.

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