Stone is a village and
civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...
in the
Wyre Forest District
Wyre Forest is a local government district in Worcestershire, England, covering the towns of Kidderminster, Stourport-on-Severn and Bewdley, and several civil parishes and their villages. Its council was previously based in Stourport-on-Seve ...
of
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 ...
, England. Of
Anglo-Saxon origin, it lies two miles south-east of
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 the A448 road to
Bromsgrove.
History
Stone (then spelt Stanes) was recorded 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 ...
(1086) as a formerly Anglo-Saxon
manor with an associated mill lying within the Cresslow
Hundred
100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101.
In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to des ...
. Some 24 people then lived in the village. Immediately adjoining it downhill was the separate but smaller manor of Dunclent. After Cresslow was combined with others to create the larger
Halfshire
Halfshire (Latin: ''Hundredum Dimidii Comitatūs'', "hundred of half (the) county") was one of the hundreds in the English county of Worcestershire. As three of the five hundreds in the county were jurisdictions exempt from the authority of the sh ...
, what was by then the
parish
A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one o ...
of Stone also included the settlements of Dunclent, Shenstone, Stanklin and part of Hoobrook.
The parish was
enclosed
Enclosure or Inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or "common land" enclosing it and by doing so depriving commoners of their rights of access and privilege. Agreements to enclose land ...
under an Act of 1762–3 and on its excellent soil were raised crops of wheat, barley, potatoes and beans. There were once two mills within the village boundary, one of which spun yarn for the carpet works at Kidderminster. Towards the end of the 19th century there were 104 houses in the area, with a population of 475. Included in this number were the large dwellings at Stone House, the Hoo, Dunclent House and Spennell House. At the 2001 census the area had a population of 782.
The early 18th-century Stone House, situated just behind the church, is noted for its walled gardens and associated nursery, set up in the mid-1970s. The property was Grade II listed as a historic building in 1958.
On its edge is the steep cleft of Fenny Rough, known locally as a dingle, in which is to be found the Devil's Den, and "concerning which some horrifying tales are told of the fatal results happening to persons who attempted to penetrate therein".
St Mary’s Church
A chapel at Stone was dedicated in honour of the Virgin Mary in 1269 but until 1392 it was dependent on the church at
Chaddesley Corbett
Chaddesley Corbett is a village and civil parish in the Wyre Forest District of Worcestershire, England. The Anglican and secular versions of the parish include other named neighbourhoods, once farmsteads or milling places: Bluntington, Brocken ...
. Presently it lies within the
Anglican Diocese of Worcester
The Diocese of Worcester forms part of the Church of England ( Anglican) Province of Canterbury in England.
The diocese was founded around 679 by St Theodore of Canterbury at Worcester to minister to the kingdom of the Hwicce, one of the man ...
but is under the patronage of the
Lord Chancellor
The lord chancellor, formally the lord high chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest-ranking traditional minister among the Great Officers of State in Scotland and England in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the prime minister. Th ...
. After the building was badly damaged by fire, it was rebuilt in 1831–2 with a tower and six bells, and the
chancel
In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse.
Ov ...
was enlarged in 1899–1900. One of the windows incorporates some pieces of medieval and 17th-century stained glass; some 17th-century memorial brasses also remain. The church has been a Grade II listed building since 1958.
Adjacent to it is Church House, which has also functioned as a school and parish room, and parts of which date from the 16th century. Both the church and school were supported by various
financial endowments, including income from fields in the parish and "some lands near
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 ...
containing clay for making fire-bricks". In the churchyard is a war memorial using the restored base and steps of a medieval preaching cross.
[Philip Halling]
Geograph
/ref> Also there is the grave of the racing driver Peter Collins, who came from nearby Mustow Green.
References
{{authority control
Villages in Worcestershire