Kinver

infobox UK place
country = England
official_name= Kinver
latitude= 52.4488
longitude= -2.2280
population = 6,805 (2001 Census) |shire_district= South Staffordshire
shire_county= Staffordshire
region= West Midlands
constituency_westminster= South Staffordshire
post_town= Stourbridge
postcode_area= DY
postcode_district= DY7
dial_code= 01384
os_grid_reference= SO845835

Kinver is a large village in South Staffordshire district, Staffordshire, England. It is in the far south-west of the county, at the end of the narrow finger of land surrounded by the counties of Shropshire, Worcestershire and the West Midlands. The nearest towns are Stourbridge in the West Midlands, and Kidderminster in Worcestershire. The Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal passes through, running close to the course of the meandering River Stour. According to the 2001 census Kinver had a population of 6,805.

The village today

The village has three schools: Foley Infant School, Brindley Heath Junior School and Edgecliff High School. The Infant school rings the home time bell 15 minutes before the Junior or High Schools. This is to allow the parents collecting children from both sites to cover the three quarters of a mile journey.

280 acres of land are in the possession of the National Trust. There is a Country Park near the Edge. The Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal is popular with boaters in the summer months.

The parish

[http://www.wdcra.org.uk/kinver.htm St. Peter's Church] , the village and parish church sits in a prominent position on a hill just south of the village.

Several hamlet (place)s lie in the parish of Kinver, including Compton, Stourton and Whittington. The neighbouring village of Enville is in its own parish.

History

Kinver has, at varous times in the past, been spelt on maps and documents as: Kinfare, Kynfare, Chenfare, and Cynefare.

The hilltop church is on a very ancient site, and the current church, dedicated to St. Peter dates from the 12th century. The village High Street was laid out as the burgages of a new town by the lord of the manor in the late 13th century and was administered by a borough court, separate for the manorial court for the rest of the manor of Kinver and Stourton (known as Kinfare Foreign).

The main pub, The White Hart, dates from the 14th century, and the Anchor Hotel from the 15th Century. The Grammar School, although it closed as a school in 1915, is 16th Century.

Kinver was known for making sturdy woollen cloth, using the flow of the Stour for fulling mills and dyeing. The village also profited from being a stop on the great "Irish Road" from Bristol to Chester (until the 1800s, the port of embarkation for Ireland), the 'White Hart' being the oldest and largest inn.

Later, the river was used to power finery forges and from 1628 the first slitting mills, including Hyde Mill which has been claimed (incorrectly) as the earliest in England, though it certainly was among the earliest. There were five slitting mills in the parish by the late 18th century, more than any other parish in Great Britain. These slit bars of iron into rods to be made into nails in the nearby Black Country. ["Victoria County History, Staffordshire" XX. ]

Stourton Castle figured notably in the history of the English Civil Wars.

In 1771 the area was opened up to trade by the Staffordshire and Worcester Canal, built by James Brindley.

In Victorian and Edwardian times it was a popular Sunday day out for people from Birmingham and the Black Country, via a 1901 pole & wires tram extension that ran across the fields, the "Kinver Light Railway".

The nailshops and forges ceased work around 1892, and local ironworks are thought to have all closed in about 1912 or 1913.

The local cave houses were the setting of a silent film, "Bladys of the Stewpony" (1919, Sabine Baring-Gould), but most of this has since been lost. The "Stewpony" was the name of an ancient Inn in Kinver.

Dick Whittington

According to local claims, the Whittington Inn, was formerly Whittington manor house, built in 1310 by Sir William de Whittington, a knight at arms and grandfather of Richard Whittington, upon whose life the pantomime character Dick Whittington is based.

These claims are in fact unfounded: Dick Whittington (q.v.) came from Gloucestershire. The Whittington Inn was merely a farm house, belonging to a freeholder of the manor of Whittington. The 18th century manor house was undoubtedly Whittington Hall (now Whittington Hall Farm). This belonged to the lords of the manor, and probably had done so since the medieval period. ["Victoria County History, Staffordshire XX. ]

Kinver Light Railway

An innovative electric light tramway opened in 1901 and helped establish the local tourism industry.

Kinver rock houses

The National Trust-owned beauty spot of Kinver Edge lies to the south-west of the village. There are notable rock or cave houses on Kinver Edge, carved from the sandstone. Some were inhabited within living memory.

Kinver celebrities

Kinver was the birthplace of the distinguished stage and screen actress Nancy Price who appeared in such films as Love, Life and Laughter. Her home Rockmount is situated at the top of the village.

Drakelow tunnels / Drakelow RGHQ

Just outside of Kinver are the infamous and mysterious Drakelow Tunnels. The tunnels were used for various purposes by the MoD for many years.

During World War II the tunnels housed a factory which would have been used to build aircraft engines should the main supply factory in Birmingham ever have been bombed.

Clearly the theory was because of the tunnels being underground the enemy would not know of its existence or beneath solid rock safe from even large bombs and the site wouldn't be targeted by bombers.

During the Cold War the tunnels were turned into an RGHQ (Regional Government Headquarters. In the event of Nuclear War Government officials, VIPs and heads of the regional military and emergency services would be housed here safely away from falling bombs and the effects of radiation and Nuclear fallout.

Currently the site is disused - but a special trust has been set up to turn the site into a tourist attraction and to preserve a part of a 'secret military history' of the United Kingdom that very few people knew about. Visits are sometimes arranged for interested parties. For more information on the tunnels visit -> [http://www.kinveronline.co.uk Kinver Online]

Further reading

"Victoria County History, Staffordshire" XX (1984), 118-60.

Town twinning

*Flagicon
*Park Ridge, Illinois
*Mer, Loir-et-Cher, France

External links

* [http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/STS/Kinver/ Genuki: Kinver]
* [http://www.openchurchestrust.org.uk/Kinver.htm History of Kinver Church] dead link|date=January 2008 |url=http://www.openchurchestrust.org.uk/Kinver.htm
* [http://www.kinveronline.co.uk Kinver Online]
* [http://www.staffordshire.gov.uk/leisure/libraries/branchlibraries/KinverLibrary/KinverLibrary.htm Kinver Library]
* [http://www.ville-de-mer.com Mer]
* [http://www.stourbridge.com/htm/stour.htm River Stour]
* [http://www.canaljunction.com/canal/staffs_worcs.htm S&W Canal]

References