Description:Madeley is situated in north-west Staffordshire on the border with Shropshire and is distinctive for its large and picturesque mill pool. The village was also well known in Staffordshire and beyond for the former teacher training college.
The name Madeley is thought to mean ‘a clearing in woodlands’ belonging to ‘Mada’.
Madeley is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as part of the lands of Robert de Stafford. It was tenanted at that time by Ulviet, who had substantial landholdings in Staffordshire. It had enough arable land to support four ploughs. Five villeins, or tenants who held land in return for labour services, and seven bordars, or smallholders who had brought land into cultivation on the edges of the village, are recorded. It was valued at 30 shillings.
The manor remained in the possession of the Staffords until their estates were forfeited to the Crown on the execution of the Duke of Buckingham, the title by which they were then known, in 1521. Eventually in 1547 the manor of Madeley was bought by the Offley family. The Offleys married into the Crewe family of Crewe Hall in 1679. It was this alliance which in due course caused the decline of the manor house in Madeley itself because the family chose Crewe Hall as their home.
The mediaeval manor house of Madeley was rebuilt by the Offleys and it was illustrated in Dr Robert Plot’s Natural History of Staffordshire, published in 1686. The illustration shows a very fine house indeed with elaborate formal gardens. However, as the Offley-Crewes spent more and more of their time at Crewe Hall, so Madeley Manor fell into disrepair and it was demolished in 1793. Manor Farm was built from some of the building materials from the demolition.
A particular feature of mediaeval Madeley were the three enclosed deer parks called Madeley Great Park, Leycett Park and Nethersethey Park. Traces of Madeley Great Park are still evident in the landscape.
In 1532, 47 families were recorded in Madeley. By the time of the Hearth Tax assessment of 1666, 66 households were assessed as liable to pay tax, with a further 39 assessed as too poor to pay. The largest property was of course Madeley Manor with 20 hearths recorded. At the time of the first national census in 1801, Madeley’s population was 945, rising to just under 3,000 by 1901.
Madeley’s parish church is dedicated to All Saints and was in existence by the end of the 12th century. It has a Norman arcade and an Early English nave. The chancel was rebuilt in 1872 to the design of Charles Lynam, a local North Staffordshire architect. The church is notable for its windows, one designed by William Morris, one by Burne Jones and a third by Ford Maddox Brown. Chapels for Primitive Methodists were built at Poolside in 1856 and at Madeley Heath in 1879. The Wesleyan Methodists built their first chapel in 1831 in Moss Lane. The formation of the United Methodist Free Church led to a further chapel at Parkside in 1853.
Madeley Old Hall to the north of the church is a half timbered building and dates from 1647. It carries an inscription which can be seen from the road: “Walk Knave; what lookest at?” It is one of a number of older farmhouses in the parish.
Industrial development came to the north-eastern side of the parish as a result of coal and iron-ore in the area. The mining of coal at Leycett began in the Middle Ages and continued into the 20th century until it became uneconomic and the pits closed. The area around the pits developed into a clearly separate mining community at Leycett. There was a furnace in Madeley by the 17th century used for iron smelting. Dr Robert Plot commented in 1686 on the weight of the products produced there. Iron smelting continued in the area until the early 19th century.
Despite this industrial development Madeley remained predominantly an agricultural village until the mid-20th century. As with many other villages, new housing and improved communications came to the village in the later 20th century.
For those who want to know more, see Madeley A History of a Staffordshire Parish, edited by J Kennedy. This can be consulted in the William Salt Library in Stafford or at Newcastle Library.