Kinver, Staffordshire

Description
Kinver, a small town and a parish in Staffordshire, adjacent to Worcestershire and Salop. The town stands on the river Stour, 4 miles WSW of Stourbridge. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office, and an endowed grammar school, a public library and reading-room, and a cottage-hospital. It was anciently a place of considerable relative-importance, a borough and market-town. Spades and steel forks are made, and a large business is carried on in agricultural and other seeds. The parish comprises the manors of Kinver and Whittington, which include the hamlets of Compton, Stourton, Dunsley, and Iverley. Acreage, 9011; population, 2160. The principal house is the ancient castle-of Stourton, formerly the occasional residence of King John, and at a later period the birthplace of Cardinal Pole. This was converted into a modern residence by the late Mr James. Foster, M.P. A Saxon encampment crowns the summit of the ridge from which the parish derives its name, Cefn-fawr, which probably was occupied by Wulphere, king of Mercia. The-living is a vicarage in the diocese of Lichfield; gross value, £99 with residence. The church stands on a spur of the hill overlooking the town; it dates from the Norman period, and contains a good monumental brass of one of the Grey family, dated 1528. There are Wesleyan and Primitive Methodist chapels.