In 1986, 900 years after William the Conqueror’s original Domesday Book, the BBC published the Domesday Project. The project was probably the most ambitious attempt ever to capture the essence of life in the United Kingdom. Over a million people contributed to this digital snapshot of the country.
People were asked to record what they thought would be of interest in another 1000 years.
The whole of the UK – including the Channel Islands and Isle of Man – was divided into 23,000 4x3km areas called Domesday Squares or “D-
Schools and community groups surveyed over 108,000 square km of the UK and submitted more than 147,819 pages of text articles and 23,225 amateur photos, cataloguing what it was like to live, work and play in their community.
Introduction
Cradley is a small suburb of Halesowen
bounded by a "Green belt" area.It has
a number of light industries and is
traditionally connected with heavy
metal industry.
Amusing Ourselves
To keep ourselves amused in 1985,these
are some of the things we do.
We play games on the computer or type
things in and invent our own games.
Sometimes we just watch the television
or video.We like listening to pop
music.We like going to disco's.Disco
is the shortened word for discotheque.
At the disco people dance to the
records the disc jockey plays.There
are lights flashing round in different
colours and sometimes there are
pictures.Some girls go to guides and
boys go to scouts.They learn to cook
on open fires and to camp in
tents.There are brownies, beavers
and cubs for younger children and
rangers and ventures for older
children.Some people go to the
swimming baths to swim.There are two
baths in the area.
One is Halesowen baths and one is
Wollescote School Baths.Some people go
to fairs.This is place where there
are electrical rides for people to go
on.Some of our parents go to public
houses where alcohol is sold.Sometimes
people sing or bands play to entertain
you.The person that owns the pub is
called the licencee.He has his name
above the door.This shows he is
licenced to sell alcohol.Darts is very
often played in pubs.This is a game
played on a circular board.There are
two players each has three darts.The
players throw the darts at the board
which has twenty-
segment is numbered and the person who
hits the highest number wins.The
highest score possible is 180.There
are different versions to the
original game.One is called ROUND THE
BOARD and the other is HIGHEST SCORER.
Opinions about our area
There are some good points about
living in Cradley.There are lots of
friendly people and once you have been
living there for quite a while it's a
very nice place.Cradley comes under
Dudley Council.In Cradley we are near
to large towns like Dudley,
Wolverhampton and Birmingham which are
useful for shopping.We're also near to
beautiful countryside like Kinver,
Clent,Walton and the Lickey Hills.
There are quite a few things to do
in Cradley for example there's a park
called the Rec. It's got football
pitches and tennis courts.It's also
got swing's, slides and climbing
frames.
It was always a close knit community
where everybody knew each other and
everybody worked hard because it was
an industrial area.
When they built the flats in fields
they shipped in people from all over
the place, people who had no previous
contact with Cradley or its history.
Cradley has lots of foundries and
factories so the smell of chemicals
prevail.Some of the flats aren't
very nice to look at because they've
been neglected for so long.They've
also been vandelised like so many
other things in Cradley.
There is a high school called
Cradley high and three primary schools
called Caslon, Colley Lane and Cradley
Church of England.So where ever you
live you are near a school.The High
School is being rebuilt at the moment
and it will have many new facilities
and ammenities for the community to
use as well as the school children.
Local History
Lutley Mill at the bottom of Drews
Holloway was one of the first mills to
forge metal as well as grind corn.
Cradley is famous for its chain making
and it made the chain and anchor for
the Titanic.There were quite a few
mines in Cradley because it was part
of the Black Country.
Religion
There are three churches in Colley
Lane.First there is St.Peter's Church
of England. It stands on a hill with a
graveyard behind it.It also has a
school called Cradley C.of E. Primary
School. Many of the children from
Colley Lane Primary School go to
services or Sunday School at St.
Peter's.
A large Methodist Church, Cradley
Trinity, stands about half way down
Colley Lane. Boys Brigade is held here
on Wednesday evenings. Nearby is the
Pentecostal Church.
Sports Facilities
There are smaller play areas
scattered among the housing estates.
The football ground belonging to
Cradley Town club took 12 months to be
built.It is a full size pitch.On the
right-
School,on the left-
allotments and fields.The pitch is
about 22 years old.There is a changing
room for the team and a club for
visitors and supporters.
Swimming is probably one of the most
popular sports and the pool at
Halesowen has got very good
facilities.
Events
Each year Cradley holds a carnival
for schools and societies in the
Cradley area.Everybody involved in the
carnival makes a float based on a
theme. This year Huntingtree school
chose V.E.day and dressed in war time
costumes.In the competition they came
3rd. After the judging was over the
children looked around the stalls and
the rest of the carnival.The stalls
sold all kinds of things.There were
several sideshows and games which had
prizes to be won.After the carnival
there was a big disco, everybody went
with their parents,they were allowed
to stay up late.
Life Styles
Cradley is a very busy place,there is
a lot of traffic on the roads and many
people around the streets.It is a very
untidy place.There are crisp
wrappers,chocolate
wrappers,cans,broken glass from
bottles all over the
place.Churches,schools and factories
have their windows broken by vandals.
Thare are a few tramps like Jeff
hanging around in the streets and
asleep on benches.
There are hundreds of council houses
-
population of Cradley live in
them.There is also a lot of waste
ground,where the council has knocked
down old houses.
There are lots of garages and petrol
stations, because 50% of the families
in Cradley own a car.
Spare Time Activities
There are quite a few places where you
can enjoy yourself.In Cradley there
are a lot of discos that usually run
every week.There are about three parks
around here.You don't have to go far
to cinemas.There are different places
for adults too like liberal clubs
,community centres etc.Unfortunately
it doesn't have a sports centre.
Churches have different
organisations like
Brownies,Guides,Scouts,Boys
Brigade,Choirs and Bible study
classes.Some clubs and pubs have
outings,Fishing groups,Snooker and
Dart groups and Gardening clubs.
At Lutley community centre the
activities include Keep Fit
classes,Toddlers group,Yoga sessions
and a Darby and Joan club.
Employment
About three quarters of the people
living in the area are white collar
workers and the other quarter do
manual jobs.In half of the families
both parents work and in the other
just men.
Most people work near their homes or
in the surrounding area but some
people travel round.Full-
work 8 to 10 hours a day and part-
workers work 3 to 4 hours a day.Most
people travel by car.The rest either
travel by trains which they catch at
Cradley Heath or Lye stations or by
bus.In the Cradley area quite a few
people are employed in metal-
industries manufacturing nuts,bolts,
piping etc.
Across Stour Valley; Cradley.
Council flats dominate the Cradley landscape. Built on reclaimed open-
Across green-
Cereal crops and rough grazing border the modern residential areas of Hasbury/Hayley Green.These estates provide homes for B'ham commuters.
At War |
School |
Chain & Coal |
Chapels & Churches |
Cradley Articles |
Newspaper Clippings |
Chain Making |
Land of the Chain Makers |
Coal Mining |
Chain Makers - The White Slaves of England |
Women Chainmakers Strike (1910) |
Poet's Corner |
Essay's by Norman Bird |
Essay's by Peter Barnsley |
On the Box |
Early Non Conformity & John Wesley's Visit |
The Mills on the Stour |
The Cradley Park Turnpike Road |
Location (Key Map of Cradley Sites) |
Cradley Places |
Maps |
Hingley Probates |
1841 Census |
1881 Census Analysis |
1782 & 1785 Enclosure Surveys |
About This Data |
Field Survey (1782) |
House Survey (1782) |
Field & House Survey (1785) |
Field Names |
Place Names |
Sketches of Cradley by Colin Homer |
Artwork by Arrowsmith |
Sketches of Cradley by Jim Round |
Cradley Then & Now |
The Black Country Society |
The B.M.S.G.H |
The Cradley Podging Ladies |
The First 10 Years |
At The Black Country Museum |
Book Launch |
Bookshop |
Jill Guest |
Nigel Brown |
Stephen Cox |
Contact Us & Submissions |
Copyright |
What People Are Saying |
Cradley In 2020 |
Cradley & Local Links |
Black Country Links |
General Links |