Kinver is a large village in the
District of South Staffordshire in
Staffordshire, England. It is in the far south-west of the county, at the end of the narrow finger of land surrounded by the counties of
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 ...
,
Worcestershire
Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see H ...
and the
West Midlands
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...
. The nearest towns are
Stourbridge
Stourbridge is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley in the West Midlands, England, situated on the River Stour. Historically in Worcestershire, it was the centre of British glass making during the Industrial Revolution. The ...
, West Midlands,
Kidderminster
Kidderminster is a large market and historic minster town and civil parish in Worcestershire, England, south-west of Birmingham and north of Worcester. Located north of the River Stour and east of the River Severn, in the 2011 census, it ha ...
in Worcestershire and
Bridgnorth
Bridgnorth is a town in Shropshire, England. The River Severn splits it into High Town and Low Town, the upper town on the right bank and the lower on the left bank of the River Severn. The population at the 2011 Census was 12,079.
Histor ...
, Shropshire. The
Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal passes through, running close to the course of the meandering
River Stour. According to the 2011
census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses in ...
Kinver ward had a population of 7,225.
The village today
The village has three schools: Foley Infant
Academy
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosop ...
, Brindley Heath
Academy
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosop ...
and
Kinver High School, now part of the Invictus Multi Academy Trust. During normal times, the Infant school rings the home time bell 20 minutes before the junior or high schools. This is to allow the parents collecting children from both sites to cover the three-quarters of a mile journey.
During
lockdown
A lockdown is a restriction policy for people, community or a country to stay where they are, usually due to specific risks (such as COVID-19) that could possibly harm the people if they move and interact freely.
The term is used for a prison ...
and as the return to school is phased-in, times are staggered and year groups arrive and leave at different times to reduce the number of people at the gates at any one time.
Kinver Edge
Kinver Edge is a high heath and woodland escarpment just west of Kinver, about four miles west of Stourbridge, and four miles north of Kidderminster, and is on the border between Worcestershire and Staffordshire, England. It is now owned by th ...
, which incorporates the former
Kingsford Country Park in Worcestershire, comprises approximately 600
acres of land owned by the
National Trust
The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...
and open to the public. The
Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal which runs through the parish is popular with boaters, particularly in the summer months.
Kinver Country Fayre is a yearly event that takes place on Father's Day and attracts thousands of visitors to the village. There is also a Christmas "Big Tree" event that celebrates the lighting of a large Christmas tree situated in front of the library.
The parish
![St](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/St._Peters%2C_Kinver_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1998473.jpg)
St. Peter's Church, the village and
parish church
A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities, ...
sits in a prominent position on a hill just south of the village.
Several
hamlets
A hamlet is a human settlement that is smaller than a town or village. Its size relative to a parish can depend on the administration and region. A hamlet may be considered to be a smaller settlement or subdivision or satellite entity to a lar ...
lie in the parish of Kinver, including
Dunsley, Compton,
Stourton and Whittington. The neighbouring village of
Enville is in its own parish.
Transport
Kinver operates the 242 service from Kinver to Stourbridge and 580 TUES/THU/FRI Twice a day to Kidderminster
History
Kinver has, at various times in the past, been spelt on maps and documents as: Kinfare, Kynfare, Chenfare, Chenevare, Chenefare (as listed in the
Domesday Book
Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...
) and Cynefare. The earliest form of the name is Cynibre, in a charter of 736 AD. The first element may be assimilated to cyne 'royal', but may come from a Celtic root cuno- 'dog'. The second element -bre refers to a steep hill, probably Kinver Edge. The ancient Hill Fort atop the Edge is of possible Bronze-age and certainly Iron Age origin. A Roman presence at nearby Greensforge Fort dates from around 47 AD.
The hilltop
church
Church may refer to:
Religion
* Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities
* Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination
* Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship
* C ...
is on a very ancient site, and the current church, dedicated to
St. Peter dates from the 12th century. The village High Street was laid out as the
burgage
Burgage is a medieval land term used in Great Britain and Ireland, well established by the 13th century.
A burgage was a town ("borough" or "burgh") rental property (to use modern terms), owned by a king or lord. The property ("burgage tenement ...
s of a new town by the
lord of the manor
Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seig ...
in the late 13th century and was administered by a borough court, separate for the manorial court for the rest of the
manor of Kinver and Stourton (known as Kinfare Foreign).
The main pub, The White Hart, dates from the 14th century, and the Anchor Hotel (now developed as housing) from the 15th century. The grammar school opened in 1511, the first teacher being a priest paid by local men, and functioned as a school until closure in 1916. School accounts from the 1700s are held at the University of Birmingham.
Kinver was known for making sturdy woollen cloth, using the flow of the
Stour for
fulling mill
Fulling, also known as felting, tucking or walking ( Scots: ''waukin'', hence often spelled waulking in Scottish English), is a step in woollen clothmaking which involves the cleansing of woven or knitted cloth (particularly wool) to elimin ...
s and dyeing. The village also profited from being a stop on the great "Irish Road" from
Bristol
Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...
to
Chester (until the 19th century, the port of embarkation for Ireland), the 'White Hart' being the oldest and largest
inn
Inns are generally establishments or buildings where travelers can seek lodging, and usually, food and drink. Inns are typically located in the country or along a highway; before the advent of motorized transportation they also provided accommo ...
.
There was a brief cavalry melee on the Heath during the
English Civil War
The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...
between "
Tinker Fox
Colonel John "Tinker" Fox (1610–1650), confused by some sources with the MP Thomas Fox, was a parliamentarian soldier during the English Civil War. Commanding a garrison at Edgbaston House in Warwickshire – a location that guarded the main ...
" the local Parliamentary commander and local Royalist forces. Fox retired to Stourton Castle which was briefly invested by the Royalists. During his flight from the
Battle of Worcester
The Battle of Worcester took place on 3 September 1651 in and around the city of Worcester, England and was the last major battle of the 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms. A Parliamentarian army of around 28,000 under Oliver Cromwell d ...
King Charles II made his way over Whittington Heath into nearby
Stourbridge
Stourbridge is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley in the West Midlands, England, situated on the River Stour. Historically in Worcestershire, it was the centre of British glass making during the Industrial Revolution. The ...
.
Later, the river was used to power
finery forge
A finery forge is a forge used to produce wrought iron from pig iron by decarburization in a process called "fining" which involved liquifying cast iron in a fining hearth and removing carbon from the molten cast iron through oxidation. Finery ...
s and from 1628
slitting mill
The slitting mill was a watermill for slitting bars of iron into rods. The rods then were passed to nailers who made the rods into nails, by giving them a point and head.
The slitting mill was probably invented near Liège in what is now Bel ...
s, including Hyde Mill which has been claimed (incorrectly) as the earliest in England, though it certainly was among the earliest. There were five slitting mills in the parish by the late 18th century, more than any other parish in Great Britain. These slit bars of
iron
Iron () is a chemical element with Symbol (chemistry), symbol Fe (from la, Wikt:ferrum, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 element, group 8 of the periodic table. It is, Abundanc ...
into rods to be made into
nails in the nearby
Black Country.
Stourton Castle figured notably in the history of the English Civil Wars. It was the birthplace of cardinal
Reginald Pole
Reginald Pole (12 March 1500 – 17 November 1558) was an English cardinal of the Catholic Church and the last Catholic archbishop of Canterbury, holding the office from 1556 to 1558, during the Counter-Reformation.
Early life
Pole was bor ...
, last catholic archbishop of Canterbury, who came within a whisker of the papacy.
In 1771 the area was opened up to trade by the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal, built by
James Brindley
James Brindley (1716 – 27 September 1772) was an English engineer. He was born in Tunstead, Derbyshire, and lived much of his life in Leek, Staffordshire, becoming one of the most notable engineers of the 18th century.
Early life
Born i ...
.
In Victorian and Edwardian times Kinver was a popular Sunday day out for people from
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...
and the Black Country, via a 1901 pole & wires
tram
A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...
extension that ran across the fields, the "Kinver Light Railway".
The nailshops and forges ceased work around 1892, and local ironworks are thought to have all closed in about 1912 or 1913.
Myths
According to local eyewitness accounts, a panther may roam the woods and fields of Kinver. It is believed this so-called 'Beast of Kinver' was once kept as a pet but was released into the wild when new laws restricting the keeping of wild animals were introduced in the 1960s. A former policeman who saw the creature described it as resembling a
European Lynx.
The larger Witch's Tree at the base of the Edge is also renowned for various visions and sightings. This was believed to be the central location for the witch trials in the area and several women were believed to be hanged for witchcraft and heresy.
Other myths and legends include the sightings of many ghosts and spirits, especially around the area of the Scout camp which is situated between the Edge and St Peter's Church. Ghosts here include the mysterious Lottie who was kidnapped from the nearby village in the mid-1850s but escaped her captors only to be chased over the Edge before her footprints mysteriously disappeared from the snowy track.
Other famous hauntings include the spirit of
Lady Jane Grey, (who was intruded as Queen of England immediately prior to
Queen Mary Tudor for nine days) whose ghost has been reported at the Whittington Inn, and the infamous William Howe, a footpad who murdered Benjamin Robins of Dunsley Hall and became the penultimate person to be gibbeted at nearby Gibbet Lane in the early 19th century.
A famous story goes that Richard Foley (known as "Fiddler Foley") had carried out
industrial espionage in
Sweden by posing as a wandering musician. By this stratagem he was said to have gained the knowledge necessary to instal his slitting mill at Hyde. The former iron foundry there was one of the places where
Dud Dudley
Dudd (Dud) Dudley (1600–1684) was an English metallurgist, who fought on the Royalist side in the English Civil War as a soldier, military engineer, and supplier of munitions. He was one of the first Englishmen to smelt iron ore using coke.
B ...
attempted his revolutionary innovations, and it has been shown that he was an ancestor of
Abraham Darby who later perfected the smelting of iron with coal (research by Carl Higgs).
There is a long-standing tradition that
Wulfhere
Wulfhere or Wulfar (died 675) was King of Mercia from 658 until 675 AD. He was the first Christian king of all of Mercia, though it is not known when or how he converted from Anglo-Saxon paganism. His accession marked the end of Oswiu of Nort ...
King of
Mercia
la, Merciorum regnum
, conventional_long_name=Kingdom of Mercia
, common_name=Mercia
, status=Kingdom
, status_text=Independent kingdom (527–879) Client state of Wessex ()
, life_span=527–918
, era= Heptarchy
, event_start=
, date_start=
, ...
(succeeded 657) dedicated the parish church of St Peter in memory of his sons, Wulphad and Ruffius, who he had killed in anger when they converted to Christianity (Seisdon Council Guide, 1966).
Dick Whittington
According to local claims, the Whittington Inn was formerly Whittington
manor house
A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals w ...
, built in 1310 by Sir William de Whittington, a
knight at arms and grandfather of
Richard Whittington
Richard Whittington (c. 1354–1423) of the parish of St Michael Paternoster Royal, City of London, was an English merchant and a politician of the late medieval period. He is also the real-life inspiration for the English folk tale '' D ...
, upon whose life the
pantomime
Pantomime (; informally panto) is a type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment. It was developed in England and is performed throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland and (to a lesser extent) in other English-speaking ...
character
Dick Whittington is based.
These claims are in fact unfounded:
Dick Whittington (q.v.) came from
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean.
The county town is the city of Gl ...
. The Whittington Inn was merely a farmhouse belonging to a freeholder of the manor of Whittington. The 18th century manor house was undoubtedly Whittington Hall (now Whittington Hall Farm). This belonged to the lords of the manor, and probably had done so since the mediaeval period.
Kinver Light Railway
Kinver Light Railway, an innovative electric light
tram
A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...
way opened on 4 April 1901 and helped establish the local tourism industry. However, as buses became more popular during the 1920s, it was eventually closed on 8 February 1930.
Transport today is provided by Select Bus service 242 from
Stourbridge
Stourbridge is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley in the West Midlands, England, situated on the River Stour. Historically in Worcestershire, it was the centre of British glass making during the Industrial Revolution. The ...
to Kinver which departs Stourbridge at xx40 Mon-Sat daytime. (There are no journeys at 1540 from Stourbridge or at 1510
and 1610 from Kinver due to the bus being used on a school route.)
Diamond Bus 580 operates one journey each way to
Kidderminster
Kidderminster is a large market and historic minster town and civil parish in Worcestershire, England, south-west of Birmingham and north of Worcester. Located north of the River Stour and east of the River Severn, in the 2011 census, it ha ...
on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday only. The 580 service number dates back to when Kinver was connected to Wolverhampton as part of the South Staffordshire bus routes at one time numbered 580-589 and which served a number of rural communities in South Staffordshire. These connections were withdrawn in 2017 as part of cuts in funding a number of bus services in the county of Staffordshire. Service 242 was previously operated by The Green Bus Company but due to a shortage of drivers, was awarded to Select Bus in September 2021 as an emergency replacement.
Kinver Edge rock houses
![Rock Houses, Kinver Edge - geograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Rock_Houses%2C_Kinver_Edge_-_geograph.org.uk_-_108789_%28cropped%29.jpg)
The
National Trust
The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...
-owned beauty spot of
Kinver Edge
Kinver Edge is a high heath and woodland escarpment just west of Kinver, about four miles west of Stourbridge, and four miles north of Kidderminster, and is on the border between Worcestershire and Staffordshire, England. It is now owned by th ...
lies to the south-west of the village at . There are notable rock or cave houses on
Kinver Edge
Kinver Edge is a high heath and woodland escarpment just west of Kinver, about four miles west of Stourbridge, and four miles north of Kidderminster, and is on the border between Worcestershire and Staffordshire, England. It is now owned by th ...
, carved from the
sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks.
Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...
, some inhabited as late as the 1960s.
Some of the rock houses have been restored to their former inhabited states.
Such rock houses were the setting of a book and silent film, ''Bladys of the Stewponey'' (1919,
Sabine Baring-Gould
Sabine Baring-Gould ( ; 28 January 1834 – 2 January 1924) of Lew Trenchard in Devon, England, was an Anglican priest, hagiographer, antiquarian, novelist, folk song collector and eclectic scholar. His bibliography consists of more than 1,2 ...
), but most of this has since been lost. The "Stewponey" refers to an ancient inn (now demolished and replaced by flats) at
Stourton in Kinver parish.
Notable people
![Robert Plant at the Palace Theatre, Manchester](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Robert_Plant_at_the_Palace_Theatre%2C_Manchester.jpg)
*
John Newey (1664–1735) born and educated in Kinver, later
Dean of Chichester (1728–1735)
*
John Hodgetts-Foley (1797 Prestwood House, Kinver – 1861) a British MP.
*
Jack Lotto (1857 in Kinver – 1944) a music hall performer and trick-cyclist.
*
Joe Morley
Joe Morley (December 3, 1867 in Kinver, South Staffordshire, England – September 16, 1937 in London) was a British classic banjoist who achieved great fame and renown in his homeland and abroad. During his lifetime, he composed hundreds of ...
(1867 in Kinver – 1937 in London) a British classical banjoist
*
Nancy Price
Nancy Price, CBE (3 February 1880 – 31 March 1970), was an English actress on stage and screen, author and theatre director. Her acting career began in a repertory theatre company before progressing to the London stage, silent films, talkies a ...
CBE (1880 in Kinver – 1970) an English actress on stage and screen, author and theatre director
*
Dorothy Round
Dorothy Edith Round (13 July 1909 – 12 November 1982), was a British tennis player who was active from the late 1920s until 1950. She achieved her major successes in the 1930s. She won the singles title at Wimbledon in 1934 and 1937, and the ...
(1908–1982) a British tennis player, won Wimbledon singles, 1934 and 1937
*
Kenneth Harper
Kenneth Harper (1913–1998) was an English film producer. He produced 13 films between 1954 and 1973. He was a member of the jury at the 21st Berlin International Film Festival.
He produced the first films of Peter Yates and Ken Russell a ...
(1913 in Kinver – 1998) an English film producer of 13 films 1954–1973
*
Jock Mulraney (1916–2001 in Kinver) a Scottish professional footballer
*
Roy Swinbourne
Royston Harry "Roy" Swinbourne (25 August 1929 – 27 December 2015) was an English footballer who played as a centre forward in the Football League for Wolverhampton Wanderers. He was capped once by England B.
Playing career
Swinbourne began h ...
(1929–2015) an English footballer who played centre forward for
Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C.
Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club (), commonly known as Wolves, is a professional football club based in Wolverhampton, England, which compete in the . The club has played at Molineux Stadium since moving from Dudley Road in 1889. The club's ...
, lived in Kinver
*
Tony Marsh (1931–2009) a British racing driver and six-times RAC Hill climb champion lived in the village
*
Alan Duff
Alan Duff (born 26 October 1950) is a New Zealand novelist and newspaper columnist. He is best known as the author of the novel '' Once Were Warriors'' (1990), which was made into a film of the same name in 1994.
Biography
Alan Duff was bo ...
(1938 in Kinver – 1989) an English first-class cricketer who played 1950s-1960s
*
Nick Owen
Nicholas Corbishley Owen is an English television presenter and newsreader, best known for presenting the breakfast television programme ''TV-am'' and the BBC's local news show ''Midlands Today'' since 1997. He was also the chairman of Luton ...
(born 1947) an English TV presenter and newsreader, presents BBC Midlands Today; Chairman of Luton Town Football Club 2008–2017, believed to live in the village
*
Robert Plant CBE (born 1948) an English singer, songwriter, and musician, the lead singer and lyricist of the rock band
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band formed in London in 1968. The group comprised vocalist Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham. With a heavy, guitar-driven sound, they are ci ...
, lives in
Shatterford, a regular visitor to the village
*
Louis Barnett (born 1991 in Kinver) a licensed chocolatier who became the youngest supplier of both the Sainsbury's and Waitrose supermarket chains at the age of 14
*
The Arcadian Kicks an indie rock band from Kinver who formed in 2006
Drakelow tunnels / Drakelow RGHQ
Just outside Kinver are
Drakelow Tunnels. The tunnels were used for various purposes by the
MoD for many years.
The tunnels were originally built as a
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 opposi ...
shadow factory
A shadow is a dark area where light from a light source is blocked by an opaque object. It occupies all of the three-dimensional volume behind an object with light in front of it. The cross section of a shadow is a two- dimensional silhouette, ...
for the
Rover car company and were used to manufacture aircraft engine components for the company's main supply factory in
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...
and its shadow factories at
Acocks Green
Acocks Green is an area and ward of southeast Birmingham, England. It is named after the Acock family, who built a large house there in 1370. Acocks Green is one of four wards making up Yardley formal district. It is occasionally spelled "Acoc ...
and
Solihull
Solihull (, or ) is a market town and the administrative centre of the wider Metropolitan Borough of Solihull in West Midlands County, England. The town had a population of 126,577 at the 2021 Census. Solihull is situated on the River Blyth ...
. They were also intended to act as a backup facility if either of the main shadow factories was damaged by enemy action. Part of the underground facility was also used as an
RAF
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
stores area.
During the
Cold War the tunnels were turned into a
Regional Government Headquarters (RGHQ). In the event of
Nuclear War Government officials,
VIP
A very important person or personage (VIP or V.I.P.) is a person who is accorded special privileges due to their high social status, influence or importance. The term was not common until sometime after World War 2 by RAF pilots.
Examples inc ...
s and heads of the regional military and
emergency services
Emergency services and rescue services are organizations that ensure public safety and health by addressing and resolving different emergencies. Some of these agencies exist solely for addressing certain types of emergencies, while others deal w ...
would be housed here safely away from falling bombs and the effects of
radiation and
nuclear fallout
Nuclear fallout is the residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear blast, so called because it "falls out" of the sky after the explosion and the shock wave has passed. It commonly refers to the radioac ...
. After the Cold War ended, the Drakelow site was decommissioned and sold in around 1993.
Planning permission was granted in January 2021 for the tunnels to be developed into a wine warehouse and distribution centre, with around of the tunnels being renovated to museum standard.
Kinver Brewery
Kinver Brewery was established in 2004. The brewery won the Champion Beer of Britain Gold Medal at the National Winter Ales Festival 2014 for "Over the Edge" in the Barley Wine and Strong Old Ale category.
Further reading
* ''Victoria County History, Staffordshire'' XX (1984), 118–60.
A brief history of Kinver on ''kinveronline.co.uk''
Drakelow UnearthedThe secret history of an underground complex
Town twinning
Kinver is twinned with:
See also
*
Listed buildings in Kinver
References
External links
History of Kinver ChurchKinver OnlineKinver Past & Present
{{authority control
Villages in Staffordshire
South Staffordshire District