Studley, Warwickshire

Description
Studley, a village and a parish in Warwickshire. The village stands on the river Arrow, 1 mile W of Studley and Astwood Bank station on the Evesham and Ashchurch branch of the M.R., and 3 miles SSE of Redditch. It manufactures needles and fish-hooks, and has a post, money order, and telegraph office (R.S.O.) A fair is held on 28 Sept. The parish includes the hamlet of Mapleborough Green, and comprises 4305 acres; population, 2566. Studley Castle is an imposing mansion built in 1834, and stands in an extensive park. A priory was founded in the time of Henry II., went at the dissolution to Sir E. Knightly, and is now a modernized farmhouse. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Worcester; net value, £134. The church is chiefly Decorated, but has a Norman and an Early English doorway, and contains some fragments of ancient stained glass and monuments of the 17th and 18th centuries. Also the old stone steps in the N wall leading to the rood screen, discovered in 1888, together with a square stone with lamb and flag carved on it, supposed to have belonged to the Knights Templars, who once held the church. A chapel of ease at Mapleborough Green was erected in 1888. There are Baptist, Wesleyan, and Roman Catholic chapels.