Residents of Chapel House

Residents of Chapel House, Cradley - compiled by Jill Guest

In the nineteenth century it was the practice for the well off and well to do to live amongst the rest of us, including in the highly industrialised Black Country town of Cradley.

Thus, many ironmasters, solicitors and the like lived in grand houses in close proximity to the poor housing that most people lived in. One of these was Chapel House, situated between Park Road and Chapel House Lane.

Back in 2003, Barry Blunt informed us of the history of Chapel House. He said: "In 1782 the field in which Chapel House came to be built was called Chapel Yard Close. It was owned by Humphrey Buffery and farmed by Thomas Allchurch. There was a block of buildings near to the road now called Chapel House Lane. This included Buffery's own house where he lived with his wife Ann, a tenement occupied by Mary Buffery and a stable block and warehouse where Buffery carried out his trade as a nail ironmonger. This block of buildings is shown on the estate map of Richard Brettell dated circa 1800.

However, in the year 1800 Humphrey Buffery is described by James Scott (in his list of members of the Presbyterian congregation) as living in Chapel House. It is reasonable to conclude that Chapel House was erected just before 1800 by Humphrey Buffery, and that it took its name from the field in which it stood, Chapel Yard Close. The adjacent field was called Chapel Meadow. These fields took their names from the medieval chapel that once stood nearby, referred to by ancient historians Treadway Nash and William Scott. The precise location of this chapel is proving to be illusive, but we're working on it."

The significance of the year 1782 is that this was the date of the first survey of Cradley for the enclosure of land. The schedule lists every owner and occupier of every field in Cradley, together with its name, its acreage and the way in which the field was being put to use. Barry, working with Margaret Bradley, produced a book based on the 1782 Survey, and this is still available from the Cradley Links Bookshop.

Amongst the many people known to have resided in Chapel House were Joseph Priestley Jnr. (Dissenting minister, son of Dr. Joseph Priestley: theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, educator, and political theorist); the Reverend William Bowen (who married Priestley's daughter, Marianne); Noah Hingley (the ironmaster who introduced the making of ship's anchors and anchor chains to the Black Country, and whose workers famously made the anchors and chains for the Titanic); Dr. Ashley Belbin (General Practitioner, Medical Officer & Public Vaccinator, Cradley District, Stourbridge Union); and Dr. Shedden (who succeeded Belbin in all these roles).

The information that follows has been compiled from various sources, including censuses, books, Trades Directories, and other material, much of which is to be found elsewhere on Cradley Links. We are indebted to Priestley ("Pete") Toulmin in the United States for supplying us with the beautiful image of Chapel House (above). Pete's genealogical connection to the Priestley family is described in Mudd in Your Eye, the Newsletter of the Department of Chemistry, Lehigh University, Pennsylvania, Number 38, March 2010, page 6.