About - Two Gates Ragged School
Two Gates Ragged School is a non-denominational christian chapel or meeting house. The term chapel was formerly the standard designation for church buildings belonging to independent or nonconformist religious societies and their members.
The word chapel is particularly associated with independent religious practice in rural regions of England and Wales, in northern industrial town of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and in centres of population close to but outside of London City.
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A few lines from a poem appearing in County Express
“We love the Two Gates Ragged School,
There we learn to read and pray;
Our manners are improving
As we go from day to day.
We learn to sing and spell,
We learn to write and drill,
We learn to knit and stitch and sew;
Poor children to this school should go.
The charge is but one penny
For attendance every day.
And if you cannot get the pence,
The gentlemen will pay.”
Leah Hingley
'Township of Cradley (1750)'
The 2006 map produced by John Hemmingway and Jennifer Foster from the Historic Environment Team at Dudley MBC in cooperation with the local historical society who carried out the research shows the ancient field system that operated about the 'Township' of Cradley in 1750.
The site about the field labelled Cradley Upper Field changed hands as plots of land were divided and sold, that part adjacent to the road along Two Gates forming the site of Two Gates Ragged School.
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Cradley Links: Visit the Bookshop for the below publications
