Claverley


Claverley is a village and civil parish in east Shropshire, England. The parish also includes the hamlets of Beobridge, Hopstone, Upper Aston, Ludstone, Heathton and a number of other small settlements.
Claverley village is east of the market town of Bridgnorth, near the Staffordshire county boundary. The village has three public houses, although one is currently unoccupied and its future unclear.
The Church of England parish church of All Saints dates from the 11th century and has a rare 13th century wall painting. On the north side of the nave, and dated to around 1200, a frieze of painted scenes some long shows a series of 15 knights in armour, mostly engaged in single combat. It has been suggested that this portrays scenes from the 5th century poem Psychomachia, a battle between virtues and vices, by Prudentius. A recent theory is that the knight with the horn is Roland and that the Holy Cross is the unifying theme of the mural scheme. There are also a number of tombs of the Gatacre family, who dominated the parish from the Middle Ages to the early 20th century. In the Tudor period they were closely associated with religiously conservative and recusant circles. The chapels in the church were originally their private preserve.
On the edge of the village is the 'Arts and Crafts' style mansion, Brook House; it was built in 1937 for the Gibbons family, who made their money as lock and window merchants in Wolverhampton.