Claverley 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 east
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 ...
, England. The parish also includes the hamlets of
Beobridge
Beobridge is a small, scattered hamlet in Shropshire, England. It is in the civil parish of Claverley.
Its name probably comes from Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoke ...
, Hopstone, Upper Aston, Ludstone, Heathton and a number of other small settlements.
Claverley village is east of the
market town
A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village or city. In Britain, small rural ...
of
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 ...
, near the
Staffordshire county boundary. The village has three
public house
A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and wa ...
s, although one is currently unoccupied and its future unclear.
On the edge of the village is the
Arts and Crafts style mansion, Brook House; it was built in 1937 for the Gibbons family, who made their money as lock and window merchants in
Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton () is a city, metropolitan borough and administrative centre in the West Midlands, England. The population size has increased by 5.7%, from around 249,500 in 2011 to 263,700 in 2021. People from the city are called "Wulfrunians ...
.
Church
The
Church of England parish church of
All Saints dates from the 11th century and has a rare 13th-century
wall painting
A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage.
Word mural in art
The word ''mural'' is a Spanish ...
. On the north side of the
nave
The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...
, and dated to around 1200, a frieze of painted scenes some long shows a series of 15 knights in
armour, mostly engaged in single combat. It has been suggested that this portrays scenes from the 5th-century poem ''
Psychomachia
The ''Psychomachia'' (''Battle of Spirits'' or ''Soul War'') is a poem by the Late Antique Latin poet Prudentius, from the early fifth century AD. It has been considered to be the first and most influential "pure" medieval allegory, the first ...
'', a battle between virtues and vices, by
Prudentius
Aurelius Prudentius Clemens () was a Roman Christian poet, born in the Roman province of Tarraconensis (now Northern Spain) in 348.H. J. Rose, ''A Handbook of Classical Literature'' (1967) p. 508 He probably died in the Iberian Peninsula some ti ...
. A recent theory is that the knight with the horn is Roland (the only surviving medieval mural of this hero) and that the Holy Cross is the unifying theme of the mural scheme.
There are also a number of tombs of the Gatacre family, who dominated the parish from the Middle Ages to the early 20th century. In the Tudor period they were closely associated with religiously conservative and
recusant
Recusancy (from la, recusare, translation=to refuse) was the state of those who remained loyal to the Catholic Church and refused to attend Church of England services after the English Reformation.
The 1558 Recusancy Acts passed in the reign ...
circles. The chapels in the church were originally their private preserve.
Notable people
*Sir
Robert Broke
Sir Robert Broke SL (died 5 or 6 September 1558) was an English judge, politician and legal writer. Although a landowner in rural Shropshire, he made his fortune through more than 20 years' service to the City of London. MP for the City in fi ...
(died 1558), Tudor-era judge and politician was son of a Claverley family and has tomb in Claverley Church.
[The History of Parliament: Members 1509–1558 – BROKE, Robert (Author: Helen Miller)]
/ref>
* Thomas Gatacre (died 1593), politician, later Protestant cleric, member of family seated at Gatacre in Claverley parish.
*Lieutenant-General Sir William Forbes Gatacre
Lieutenant-General Sir William Forbes Gatacre (3 December 1843 – 18 January 1906) was a British soldier who served between 1862 and 1904 in India and Africa. He commanded the British Army Division at the Battle of Omdurman and the 3rd D ...
(1843-1906) was a son of the family seated at Gatacre.[Report by Toby Neal, part of 'Great Lives' series on Midlands worthies. She was reportedly living there 1965 and 1968.]
See also
* Listed buildings in Claverley
References
External links
Villages in Shropshire
Civil parishes in Shropshire
{{Shropshire-geo-stub
