St Mary's church - Chadwell, Leicestershire
Posted by: 
SMacB
N 52° 48.793 W 000° 50.445
30U E 645522 N 5853677
Anglican church of St Mary, Chadwell.
Waymark Code: WM10EVF
Location: East Midlands, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 04/25/2019
Views: 2
"Chadwell should properly be called Caldwell. The earliest surviving record of it being so called dates from 1276. Caldwell stems from two Old English words, which together literally mean ‘cold-well,’ or ‘cold-stream’, the well or strearn concemed being situated by the churchyard wall, and from which the village derived its proper name. Sadly, the spring is now all but dried up. It used to be much resorted to for its medicinal properties, local folklore relating that the water was especially efficacious in remedying diseases and disorders of the skin. According ta Jahn Nichols, in his ‘History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester’, the village was first ‘miscalled Chadwell in the Parliamentary Return of 1801, which, incidentally, stated: ‘Wickham and Chadwell contain 25 houses; the number of males is 50, of females 55; total 105; of whom 50 are employed chiefly in agriculture’.
Caldwell remained the generaily accepted name for the village until relatively recent times, its present, historically speaking incorrect, name only having come to be the accepted one in the early years of the present century. Chadwell has been linked to the neighbouring hamlet of Wycombe since time immemorial, but Chadwell has always had the church for both hamlets (we should really call it a chapel as it has not had its own priest since the late 13th century at least), hence the local proverb, which John Nichols quotes in his ‘History and Antiquities’:
Wikeham and Caldwell are built of a stone,
Caldwell hath a church, but Wikeham hath none."SOURCE - (
visit link)