CALVERHALL, OR CORRA,
is a chapelry and scattered village three miles north-west from Prees, which in 1841 contained 33 houses and 151 inhabitants. The township contains 1,287a. 0r. 22p. of land, mostly an undulating district. The principal landowners are John Whitehall Dod, Esq., M.P.; Viscount Hill; Lord Kilmorey; Mrs. Dale; and Thomas Hugh Sandford, Esq. Viscount Hill is lord of the manor and impropriator of the rectoral tithes, which are commuted for £86. 18s. 9d. The vicarial tithes are commuted for £26. 7s. The Chapel is a modern erection of beautiful workmanship, executed in freestone. The interior has a chaste and imposing appearance; the roof is of groined timber, and the seats are of oak; the windows are decorated with stained glass, and the altar-piece is of freestone of elaborate workmanship. A neat marble tablet remembers Elizabeth, the wife of the Rev. Edward Mainwaring, the present incumbent; another very beautifully designed, has been erected to the memory of Elizabeth, the wife of John W. Dod, Esq., M.P.; there is also a neat tablet to John Dod, Esq. The living is perpetual curacy, in the patronage of John W. Dod, Esq., and enjoyed by the Rev. Edward Mainwaring, who resides at the Parsonage, a modern brick residence, pleasantly situated and embosomed in foliage; it is beautified with pleasure grounds and shrubberies. The Almshouses consist of eight tenements, and were founded and endowed by Catherine Kerr, in 1724; the inmates are widows or aged people, who have about £4. 10s. per annum.
The Hall, the residence and property of John W. Dod, Esq., M.P., is a commodious brick mansion, stuccoed, with a front of hewn freestone, and a noble portico supported by six fluted pillars. It stands on a gentle eminence, and the views it commands are beautifully varied, picturesque, and extensive. The park grounds are richly clothed with timber, and the pleasure grounds and shrubberies are laid out with great taste. There are no remains of the ancient hall; it was surrounded by a moat, which still is filled with water, a neat bridge connecting the site on which it stood with the gardens. There is a school in the village, endowed with £20 per annum, free for all cottagers’ children. The teacher also receives £6 annually from subscriptions. Jack of Corra is a well-known liquor vessel, composed of leather, which has received the patronage of successive generations in this locality, and is interesting as a relic of the hospitality of by-gone days. It is stated that a person of the name of Corra or Kerr charged lands with the payment of £10 annually, and directed that any wayfaring traveller should call and refresh himself with the Jack filled with good malt liquor, on the payment of one penny. The bottom and the top of the vessel are encircled with a broad rim of silver, upon which is engraved, “From time immemorial: Jack of Corra is my name, don’t abuse me then for shame.” This chapelry comprises Corra, with Willaston and Millen Heath.
Post Office.—At Mr. James Jenkins’. Letters arrive by foot post from Whitchurch, at 9.30 A.M., and are despatched at 4 P.M.
Dod John Whitehall, Esq., M.P., The Hall
Dod John Whitehall, Esq., jun.
Mainwaring Rev. Edward, M.A., The Parsonage
Beeteley George, farmer
Beeteley John, farmer & vict. Jack of Corra
Court William, postman