Madeley

Poolside Mornings and a Saved Inn

Madeley Pool gives the village its centre. At the water's edge stands Madeley Mill, which ground corn, was later used for cheese making and was converted into apartments.

The Offley Arms overlooks the pool. Now a Joule's taphouse, it serves the brewery's ales in a building with a sixteenth-century oak frame and an eighteenth-century coaching-inn past. After a 2018 fire and the threat of redevelopment, villagers appealed to Joule's; the brewery bought the pub a week after their October 2019 approach and reopened it in 2021. Log fires, a beer garden and a welcome for dogs round out the stop.

Madeley Heath Tables and Village Shops

The Old Swan, on Crewe Road at Madeley Heath, offers handmade pizzas and pub classics, with gluten-free options and an emphasis on local ingredients. It has a raised restaurant, rear conservatory and side patio. The Crewe Arms Hotel, also in Madeley Heath, has ten letting rooms, a function room and a games room.

Baa Hill Farm Shop at Bar Hill sells its own home-reared lamb, beef and pork alongside eggs and game.

Norman Stone and Manor Legacies

All Saints' Church, Grade I listed, keeps a Norman arcade in its north nave dating to the late 1100s, though most of what's standing was rebuilt in the 14th and 15th centuries, with the chancel redone again in 1872. The west tower, raised around 1400, carries gargoyles and crocketed pinnacles.

Madeley's manor history includes the Offley family: Sir John Offley left money for two schoolhouses and ten almshouses, while John Offley was a friend of Izaak Walton, who dedicated The Compleat Angler to him.

Manor Roots and Country Walks

The Domesday surveyors recorded 2,160 acres of woodland at Madeley and valued the whole manor at thirty shillings, granted after 1066 to Robert de Tosny, whose descendants took the name de Stafford and held the place for the best part of five centuries.

For walkers, the Madeley and Onneley Circular runs roughly five miles through surrounding countryside. A longer loop heads north towards Betley and Wrinehill. D&G route 85 links Madeley with Crewe and Newcastle-under-Lyme and serves the Offley Arms stop. The A525 passes through the village; the nearest train options include Longport and Stoke-on-Trent, while Madeley's own station ceased service in the 1950s.

Before Motörhead

Madeley's stories reach beyond its old buildings: Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister spent part of his childhood here before becoming the frontman of Motörhead.