Noake's Worcestershire Page 307

REDDITCH. 307

opened); and the Local Board meets once a month; but the sanitary arrangements are still far from complete, the town not being thoroughly drained, and some blundering has been done in the work.

Redditch boasts of one of the best Rifle Corps in Worcestershire (formed in 1860, by R. S. Bartleet, Esq.) numbering nearly ninety privates and eight officers; Captain, V. Milward, Esq., and Mr. W. Avery Lieutenant. The working classes are well attended to: they have their Saturday evening entertainments, their friendly and temperance societies, their benefit building society, their clothing clubs, and their allotment gardens. These latter belong to the Baroness Windsor, consisting of about 400 allotments of ten roods each, let at 1s. per rood, which is paid annually at the Unicorn Hotel, when prizes are given to the best cultivators. There is also a public recreation field of four acres, the use of which is given to the town by the Baroness Windsor. Then there are National, Infant, and Ragged Schools; Roman Catholic, Baptist, Independent, Wesleyan, United Methodist, and Primitive Methodist chapels and schools. In the last century there was a Quaker congregation at Redditch; but when they "died out" I know not.

Lastly, the church is a great and excellent feature of this rising town. It is of ample dimensions, accommodating 1,500 people, there being 800 free seats; it is generally of good design and execution, but poor in detail, probably for lack of funds, but is infinitely superior to its predecessor; and the insertion of several stained glass windows as well as some good carved wood adds greatly to the appearance of the building. Value of living, £300; viear, Rev. G. F. Fessey; patroness, Baroness Windsor.