Cheadle in 1841
Cheadle is in the hundred of Totmonslow (southern division), 14 miles north-north-east of Stafford. It is called Cedla in Domesday.
The town is just within the moorland district of North Staffordshire, and is situated in the midst of hills, whose former barrenness has been covered by recent plantations of timber-trees. Several roads converge at the town, which is irregularly laid out, and consists of indifferently built houses. It is supplied with water from the Tean brook, which flows near it, and ultimately joins the Churnet. Close to the town, on the west and north-west, are hills which command a tolerably extensive prospect ; and one of which, Monkhouse, affords a favourite walk.
The church has suffered much from mutilation and alteration : the east end has been a good specimen of decorated English architecture ; but the arch of the fine east window has been altered, and the tracery mutilated : there are some good windows of decorated character. There are places of worship for Roman Catholics, Wesleyan Methodists, Methodists of the New connection, and Independents.
The area of the parish is 5,730 acres : the population in 1831 was 4,119, of which one-fourth or one-fifth was agricultural. Brass wire and tape are manufactured, and nearly 100 men were in 1831 employed in coal-mines in the parish.
The market is on Friday, and there are four yearly fairs. The Caldon canal passes along the valley of the Churnet two or three miles east of the town, and a railroad has been made from the collieries in the immediate neighbourhood of the town to the canal.
The living is a rectory in the in the archdeaconry of Stafford, in the diocese of Lichfield and Coventry, of the clear yearly value of £438, with a glebe-house : the rector presents to the perpetual curacy of Oakamoor chapel, which is a dependency of Cheadle.
There were in the parish in 1835, one infant-school, partly supported by subscription, with 44 boys and 56 girls ; a day-school, with a small endowment, with 40 boys and 20 girls ; eleven other day-schools, with 189 boys and 171 girls ; and five Sunday-schools, with 351 boys and 365 girls, besides 53 adults. |