Calverhall is a small village in
Shropshire
Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to th ...
, approximately 5 miles away from the town of
Whitchurch. It lies within the civil parish of its neighbouring village of
Ightfield
Ightfield is a small village and civil parish in Shropshire, England. The population of the parish at the 2011 census was 529.
Within the civil parish boundaries is another small village - Calverhall.
Ightfield is situated in a rural area, wi ...
which is one mile away.
History
There is evidence that the village was occupied as far back as 1066 AD as there are large curving holloway (or trackway) with a series of raised house platforms on either side in surrounding fields but for reasons unknown, the site was abandoned. It is widely believed that the
Black Death
The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causi ...
of 1350 could have been the cause but there is also the chance that the villagers were displaced by land owners so that the land could be used for livestock. There are two
moated sites in Calverhall, one near Cloverly Hall an
anotherin a field outside the village. These were common in the Medieval Period and upon them often sat manor houses of the wealthy. The moats served no defensive purpose but were instead a status symbol to display the owner's wealth
The village and surrounding would have once been owned by the
Calverhall's, a noble family of
Norman
Norman or Normans may refer to:
Ethnic and cultural identity
* The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries
** People or things connected with the Norm ...
descent, but eventually this line of succession ended and ownership was acquired by the Heywood family. In 1319, Randulph de Calverhall married Margaret, daughter of Peter Pigot, of Willaston, County Salop ''"Then follow several generations of the de Calverhalls, among them Roger de Calverhall, until the male line as tenants of the manor of Calverhall became extinct, and the estate descended to Agnes de Calverhall, daughter and heiress, who married Hugh Dod, of Edge, whose family possessed Calverhall Manor until 1850." (J.M. Runk)''
Village life
Calverhall is the home of the renowned "Olde Jack Inn" public house/restaurant, named after a famed historical drinking vessel made of leather with a silver mounted enscripted band around the rim known as "the Jacorra" ("Corra"
incidentally being an ancient name of the village). It was purported to be a challenge for any man to drink the full contents (just over a pint) of the Jacorra vessel in one go as quickly as possible but this was not as easy as it sounds due to the width of the vessel's rim only allowing a thin trickle to pour from it. Unfortunately the whereabouts of the fabled Jacorra are no longer known, and is believed to have disappeared without trace some 120 years ago.
The village has a long hunting history, it now lies within the North Shropshire Hunt's country, though the Cheshire Fox Hounds notably hunted the Shavington estate and it once lay within Sir Watkin Williams Wynn's hunting country.
Calverhall has also recently won a countywide community award, naming it the best village in Shropshire. It won praise for its improvement in recent years, due largely to a number of schemes, especially the Millennium Pond which sits either side of the road as an entrance way into the village from the Prees Road. It also boasts active sports and social groups, including cricket, tennis, bowls and a snooker/pool/recreation club, a much used village hall which caters for everything from local W.I. meetings, youth club nights and even touring local theatre groups - in fact, all in all it has more than some much larger villages. It does not however have a shop/post office which was lost a number of years ago, and was until 2002 served by the facility in neighbouring Ightfield before it too closed down and was converted into a private house.
Churches
Calverhall's church is the Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...
"Holy Trinity", which itself is part of a network of five local churches (Ash, Moreton Say
Moreton Say is a small village and sparsely populated civil parish in Shropshire, England, near the borders with Cheshire and Staffordshire, just northwest of the town of Market Drayton. It is sometimes spelled ''Moreton Saye'' or ''Moreton Se ...
, Ightfield
Ightfield is a small village and civil parish in Shropshire, England. The population of the parish at the 2011 census was 529.
Within the civil parish boundaries is another small village - Calverhall.
Ightfield is situated in a rural area, wi ...
, Calverhall, Adderley
Adderley is a village and civil parish in the English county of Shropshire, several kilometres north of Market Drayton. It is known as Eldredelei in the Domesday Book.
The Irish statesman Robert le Poer was parish priest of Adderley in 1319.
...
- abbreviated AMICA) which are within a 6-mile diameter of each other and are served mainly by the Reverend Michael Last who resides in the rectory of nearby Moreton Say. The Amica Centre, in Ightfield, is the central administrative hub and a community centre for the AMICA Benefice. The benefice website is located a
AmicaCentre.co.uk
The Holy Trinity Church that now stands at the centre of Calverhall is a fairly recent endeavour. The Calverhall or 'Corra' Chapel originally stood on the site next to the Alms houses and the new church was built in 1879 by Mrs Heywood, wife of John Pemberton Heywood
John Pemberton Heywood (1803–1877) was a banker from Liverpool, England, who was High Sheriff of Lancashire in 1855.
Life
He was the second son of John Pemberton Heywood the elder of Wakefield, and his wife Margaret Drinkwater, and grandson of A ...
, after her husband died in 1877
Housing
Housing in Calverhall falls into 3 main groups. There are (former) council houses, many of which are now privately owned. Secondly there are the "Corra Meadows" houses, these all being privately owned and are also the newest houses in the village, the development being built in the early 1990s. Also there are the oldest "Estate" houses, Calverhall falling within the boundaries of the Shavington and Cloverly estate, owned by the Heywood-Lonsdale family. The estate office is the village and was for many years run by Timothy Heywood-Lonsdale (died 2014) before recently being passed onto his son, William.
Cloverley Hall
Cloverley Hall is a grade II* listed former Victorian country house which stands to the south-east of the village. It was originally built between 1864 and 1870 by architect William Eden Nesfield
William Eden Nesfield (2 April 1835 – 25 March 1888) was an English architect. Like his some-time partner, Richard Norman Shaw, he designed several houses in Britain in the revived 'Old English' and 'Queen Anne' styles during the 1860s and 1 ...
for Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
banker John Pemberton Heywood
John Pemberton Heywood (1803–1877) was a banker from Liverpool, England, who was High Sheriff of Lancashire in 1855.
Life
He was the second son of John Pemberton Heywood the elder of Wakefield, and his wife Margaret Drinkwater, and grandson of A ...
. In its original form it was unusual in having a great hall in a Victorian building but the main wing was demolished and rebuilt in 1926-7. It is constructed in two storeys to an L-shaped floor plan. After the Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
it was converted for use as a boys' school and since 1968 has been in use as a Christian Conference Centre.
Notable people
*John Pemberton Heywood
John Pemberton Heywood (1803–1877) was a banker from Liverpool, England, who was High Sheriff of Lancashire in 1855.
Life
He was the second son of John Pemberton Heywood the elder of Wakefield, and his wife Margaret Drinkwater, and grandson of A ...
, banker (1803-1877), for whom Cloverley Hall was built, buried in churchyard.
*Clem Wilson
The Reverend Clement Eustace Macro Wilson (15 May 1875 – 8 February 1944) was an English amateur first-class cricketer and Church of England clergyman.
Cricket career
Wilson played first-class cricket for Cambridge University between 1895 an ...
, cricketer (1875-1944), who was twice Vicar (1910–12 and 1925 to his death) and died in the village.
See also
*Listed buildings in Ightfield
Ightfield is a civil parish in Shropshire, England. It contains 16 Listed building#England and Wales, listed buildings that are recorded in the National Heritage List for England. Of these, three are at Grade II*, the middle of the three g ...
References
External links
www.calverhall-village.co.uk Calverhall village website
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Villages in Shropshire