It is 12 kilometres south of Thrissur town and is on the Thriprayar road. A green and beautiful village, it is dotted by a number of temples and has quite a few rivers flowing by its vicinity. The village occupies a prominent place in the Kerala's cultural map as Cherpu is one of the main venues of the state's classical percussion ensembles like chenda melam and panchavadyam, staged as they are du
ring temple festivals called pooram. Naturally, Cherpu is the birthplace of many leading (as well as lesser known) practitioners of ethnic Kerala instruments like chenda, ilathalam, kombu, kuzhal, timila, maddalam and edakka. Cherpu has two major poorams—Peruvanam Pooram and Arattupuzha Pooram. Peruvanam, otherwise traditionally known as one of the leading Namboodiri villages of Kerala, has today many of its people employed in the manufacture of furniture and gold ornaments. Legend has it that Peruvanam village was one of the settlements created by sage Parashuram, the mythical creator of Kerala. The name Cherpu means cherunnidam (joining place) in Malayalam. Cherpu was a central place for Mahatma Gandhi's village renaissance. It was known as "Vardha" at the time of the Kochi kingdom.
