Claverley

Claverley
Claverley, Shropshire
Claverley  Claverley shown within Shropshire
Population	1,620 (2011 Census)[1]
OS grid reference	SO792934
Civil parish	Claverley
Unitary authority	Shropshire
Ceremonial county	Shropshire
Region	West Midlands
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Wolverhampton
Postcode district	WV5
Dialling code	01746
Police	West Mercia
Fire	Shropshire
Ambulance	West Midlands
EU Parliament	West Midlands
UK Parliament	Ludlow
List of places UK England Shropshire

Coordinates: 52°32′17″N 2°18′22″W / 52.538°N 2.306°W

Claverley is a village and civil parish in east Shropshire, England. The parish also includes the hamlets of Beobridge, Hopstone, Upper Aston, Ludstone, Heathton and a number of other small settlements.

Claverley village is east of the market town of Bridgnorth, near the Staffordshire county boundary. The village had three public houses, although two are currently unoccupied and their future unclear.

The Church of England parish church of All Saints dates from the 11th century and has a rare 13th century wall painting. On the north side of the nave, and dated to around 1200, a frieze of painted scenes some 50 feet (15 m) long shows a series of 15 knights in armour, mostly engaged in single combat.^[2] It has been suggested that this portrays scenes from the 5th century poem Psychomachia, a battle between virtues and vices, by Prudentius.^[3] 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.^[4] 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 circles. The chapels in the church were originally their private preserve.

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.^[5]

References

1. "Civil Parish population 2011". Retrieved 20 November 2015.
2. Ernest W., Tristram (1944). English Medieval Wall Painting: The Twelfth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 111.
3. Caiger-Smith, A (1963). English Medieval Mural Paintings. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 11.
4. Christopher Barrett (2012). 'Roland and Crusade Imagery in an English Royal Chapel', The Antiquaries Journal, vol.92, pp. 129-168.
5. "James Gibbons Ltd by Frank Spittle". Localhistory.scit.wlv.ac.uk. Retrieved 2013-06-26.

External links

Media related to Claverley at Wikimedia Commons