Madeley, Staffordshire

Description
Madeley, a village, a township, and a parish in Staffordshire. The village of Great Madeley stands 1 3/4 mile E of the meeting-point with Salop and Cheshire, and 5 1/2 miles W by S of Newcastle-under-Lyme, and has stations on the L. & N.W. and North Staffordshire railways, and a post, money order, and telegraph office under Newcastle-under-Lyme. The township contains also the hamlets of Little Madeley and Leycett, both of which have post offices. The parish contains also the township of Onneley, and comprises 5864 acres; population, 2904. The parish council, under the Local Government Act, 1894, consists of eleven members. Madeley Manor, a fine timber house now in ruins, was the seat of the Offley family, one of whom, Sir Thomas Offley, was lord mayor of London in 1536. Izaak Walton dedicated his " Compleat Angler " to Sir John Offley, another member of the family. The present Madeley Manor is a good modern mansion. The land is hilly and well wooded. Coal is worked, brickmaking is carried on, and nails are made. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Lichfield; net value, £160 with residence. The church is mainly Perpendicular, with a Transition Norman N arcade, and was restored in 1872. It contains monuments of the Offley and Egerton families, and has several modern memorial stained glass windows, chiefly of the Offley, Crewe, and Daltry families. A school was endowed under the will of Sir John Offley in 1646. There are mission churches at Madeley Heath, Leycett, and Onneley; and Wesleyan and Primitive Methodist chapels.