Houses on Chapel Lane, Chessetts Wood

Image: © Robin Stott Taken: 3 Jan 2013

Chessetts Wood is a locality, not a village, and characteristic of a type of Arden landscape: ancient countryside with suburban intrusions, mainly scattered houses, some humble and tiny, some enormous and opulent. Like Dorridge and Kingswood nearby, that have grown around their railway stations, it is within the commuter belts of Birmingham and Solihull. In 1887 this site was probably pasture. The lane takes its name from the Wesleyan Methodist chapel that was already there then, east of the railway and now a house Image The 1905 map shows the site of these houses as a brickworks, the second in the area, doubtless supplying bricks for all the piecemeal development that was taking place. By 1925 there were three or four houses here and the brickworks was disused. By 1955 the number of houses was more like today. Mapping suggests that the derelict brickworks site behind the houses has been gradually restored. There are some big ash trees in the area, as on the right, as well as the familiar oaks.

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