Description:This postcard view shows the brick church of Christ Church, Gentleshaw, which was built about 1839, restored in 1875 and extended in 1903. Originally part of the ancient parish of Longdon, Gentleshaw became a separate ecclesiastical parish in 1840.
Gentleshaw village is situated in an elevated position on Cannock Chase, a little way south of Cannock Wood. Its name derives from ‘shaw’ meaning a grove and possibly from the surname ‘Gentyl’ which occurs in the area in the 14th century, so ‘Gentyl’s grove’. Robert Plot in his ‘Natural History of Staffordshire’, written in 1686, referred to the coppices which crowned the summits of hills such as Gentle-Shaw. No doubt its elevated position accounts for the fact that there were once windmills in Gentleshaw. In the first half of the 20th century, most of the inhabitants were employed in farming or farming-related activities.
This postcard was published by Evans’ The Printers, Hednesford. It was franked in Cannock on 2 September 1914 and sent to an address in Birmingham.