CRADLEY LINKS

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Dedicated to the local and family history of Cradley in the Black Country
 

CRADLEY ONLINE


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WELCOME TO CRADLEY LINKS


For 3 months from 12 June, 2009 visitors to the Black Country Living Museum are in for a special treat.

The Museum will be hosting a new exhibition by the Cradley Then & Now local history group. Visitors will be able to learn more about the people who made Cradley into one of the chain making centres of the World, and see some of their chains and tools.

The exhibition is being hosted in the new community display space of the Black Country Living Museum. More...


OBITUARY
Regular visitors to the Cradley Links website will be saddened to hear of the death of Barry Blunt, co-author of books on The History of Cradley. For the past 12 months Barry had been living with bowel cancer and on Thursday 7 May he died at home, in his sleep, at 8.30 am. More...


CRADLEY MAP

Welcome to Cradley Links, the online resource dedicated to the local and family history of Cradley.

Thanks to Google Earth™ and FotoTagger software we are able to bring you an aerial map of Cradley and the immediately surrounding district, with pointers naming the main areas, streets and buildings of the town.

We hope this will help you find your way around. If the place you are interested in is still not to be found, contact us and we will try to help.

Just click anywhere on the map image (left) and a new window will open, bringing you a full screen map. It may take a few seconds to load.

Later there will be a second map showing the old place and street names of Cradley, the ones that have disappeared with time.


WELCOME This is Cradley in the Black Country of the Midlands of England, historically in north Worcestershire, now part of Dudley, West Midlands. It was once an ancient Saxon Manor, Cradelei, and was surveyed for the Domesday Book in 1086.

Cradley was at the forefront of the industrial revolution that swept the world and it became famous for hand-made iron chain. Today Cradley is a different place, mostly de-industrialised and its High Street re-named out of existence. Dudley Council celebrated the centenary of the old Colley Lane Primary School by demolishing it (they built a new one on the site) and this year they are closing the town's only High School at Homer Hill.

Notwithstanding all these changes Cradley continues to be a place with strong local character and there are a lot of people who regard it as "home", even when they live far away. For a place of its size Cradley has a remarkable and growing body of historical research and publications. This web site will be dedicated to furthering knowledge of our rich local and family history.

Cradley Links will continue to be closely associated with the Cradley Then & Now Group and with the Rootsweb Cradley mailing list (ENG-WORCS-CRADLEY). We hope that it will be of interest wherever you are in the world.


CONTRIBUTIONS WELCOME Please tell us what you think about the site by adding an entry in the Guestbook, or just see what other people are saying.

Please join the Rootsweb Cradley mailing list (ENG-WORCS-CRADLEY), and send your questions or thoughts about anything to do with Cradley people or places, or about the Black Country. Your message will be read by scores of other interested people who have also subscribed to the List.

Finally, please use the Contact Form to contact Cradley Links to offer articles, photos or other content; to make suggestions about what you would like to see on the site; or to report errors or problems with the site, etc.

As always, we need your comments and contributions, and in this one regard we do hope to be like the old Cradley Links which was very successful in the many people who supported the site with their articles, photographs and other information. We look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you ... the new Cradley Links webmasters.