The Little History of Worcestershire E-Book

Vanessa Morgan

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Serie: Little History of
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 254

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Here in the pages of this compact little book are thousands of years history about a county which has many stories to tell, all laid out in an informative but easy-to-read way. From Roman times when three roads traversed its landscape, to its involvement in the Civil War, Worcestershire has seen it all. The county's people, who were employed in the coal mines and iron foundries of the north, in the salt works of Droitwich, who made nails in Bromsgrove, needles in Redditch and carpets in Kidderminster, all have tales to share. Some played a part in historic events: two brothers travelled to a new life on the Mayflower and three brothers were involved in the Gunpowder Plot. Worcestershire is also home to well-known politicians, musicians and poets. They all contributed to the story of Worcestershire and can be found in the pages of this 'little history'.

Leseprobe

First published 2023

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, gl50 3qb

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Vanessa Morgan, 2023

The right of Vanessa Morgan to be identified as the Authorof this work has been asserted in accordance with theCopyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 80399 401 7

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

CONTENTS

Author’s Foreword

1   Worcestershire: Early Years, Growth and Invasion

2   The House of Plantagenet

3   The Tudor Era

4   The Early 1600s

5   Civil War, Commonwealth and Restoration

6   The Georgian Age of Improvement

7   The Victorian Age of Progress

8   1900 – A New Century, A Time of Change

9   A New Millennium on the Horizon

Bibliography

AUTHOR’S FOREWORD

Vanessa Morgan has called Worcestershire her home for all her life, although being so close to the boundaries of Birmingham she is often mistaken for a Brummie. For as long as she can remember, Vanessa has had an interest in history. Vanessa has worked as a genealogist, gives talks to numerous groups and societies, and has written five books, two on family history and three on nineteenth-century murder and crime.

As the title says, this is a short history of Worcestershire. It touches on many snippets throughout the years and has been written as a taster to encourage the reader to delve deeper into the many aspects of the people and history of the county.

1

WORCESTERSHIRE: EARLY YEARS, GROWTH AND INVASION

So what was Worcestershire like millions of years ago? The Malvern Hills were certainly in existence if nothing else. They are made of rocks 570 million years old. Ancient animals roamed the countryside. Elephants, hippopotamuses and the huge woolly mammoth seemed particularly prevalent around where the River Avon now flows.

There have been at least five ice ages in our history, all of which affected life at the time. The mammoth, like the dinosaurs before, gradually became extinct, but one animal began to develop an intelligence that helped it survive. It found protection by living in caves, and as the ice melted it emerged, finding its way to what is now Worcestershire.

THE FLINTSTONES OF WORCESTERSHIRE

Between 600,000 and 10,000 BC the climate fluctuated between cold or hot, and during the warmer spells humans began arriving in the area. They rarely settled in one place for long, travelling from place to place, hunting and picking berries for food. This was a period known as the Third Ice Age, or the Palaeolithic Age, and these early inhabitants were quite recognisable as ‘man’, showing some form of intelligence. Old Stone Age man was a primitive hunter who used simple stone tools. Examples of these have been found in the Kidderminster area as well as Kemerton, Bredon Hill, Beckford, Hartlebury Common and along the banks of where the River Avon now runs. He was sociable, mixing in small groups and discovering how to fish, hunt animals and collect plants for food.

The landscape of the Malvern Hills, visible from many parts of Worcestershire, has been there for many years.

Before the Severn and the Avon, and other rivers in Worcestershire, it was the Bytham River that ran across the Midlands and it was here that the majority of our Worcestershire ancestors settled. As the ice sheets advanced from East Anglia to Worcestershire, during what became known as the Anglian Glaciation, that river disappeared and the inhabitants of these first settlements were driven away by the ever-increasing cold.

From 10,000 BC the climate began to improve and forests and mixed woodland once more began to spread across the county. Man returned and from evidence of his basic tools he was particularly abundant near Kidderminster. As we enter the Mesolithic period we find the Middle Stone Age man, who has now begun to develop more intelligence. He used microliths, small tools made out of flint, and small, sharp-edged flints that were used as arrows for hunting and fishing. He was semi-nomadic, moving from site to site, staying just long enough to cultivate small areas and chopping down the trees to make room for basic homes. There is evidence for one of these clearings in the Kidderminster area.

The Neolithic, or New Stone Age, man began to accomplish more and to achieve a more advanced culture. His stone tools were more effective and he started using bone and wood as materials too. He lived a more settled life in small communities. Discoveries of long, rectangular ditched enclosures, known as cursor sites, near Evesham and Eckington show that these people were now clearing larger areas of woodland to make pasture land and to build villages. They used local clay to make pottery, with pieces having been found in Broadway. Polished and ground stone axes have also been found; seven in the north-east of the county, eight in the Severn Valley and three in the Avon Valley and the south-east. These people were also acting in a more civilised way. They had started to bury their dead in grave-like elongated mounds known as long barrows.

Then they discovered how to use bronze and copper.

THE BRONZE AND IRON MAN

During the Bronze Age (2500–750 BC), man discovered the alloy made of copper and tin and began making metal tools. A few have been found scattered around Worcestershire, mainly in the Severn Valley and Bredon Hill areas. An axe was found in Kidderminster.

The Bronze Age man of Worcestershire was a farmer, although evidence suggests he reared cattle more than raised crops. He also discovered a type of cremation. Evidence shows of charred bones being placed in an urn then buried in a barrow or mound. Aerial shots have picked up signs of these around Clent and Holt. In the eighteenth century one site in Clent was excavated by Charles Lyttleton, the President of the Society of Antiquaries, and three urns were found containing cremated remains.

It was now 600 BC and man was discovering how to make tools and weapons using steel and carbon, and mass production was born. Bronze Age weapons have been found at Harvington, Evesham, Defford, Bewdley, Holt, Worcester, Kempsey and Pixham. A system of trackways was also developing across the country. Some of them led to Droitwich, where there is evidence of ancient salt works. Soon the Bronze Age was replaced by the Iron Age.

Iron Age people lived in small villages surrounded by ditches with a fence of some kind. The houses were built in clusters and consisted of a circle of wooden poles with low walls of wattle and daub, a mix of straw and mud and manure. They had thatched, pointed roofs.

The village would contain a primitive well and a place to store grain. Pottery and utensils were used and cloth was woven on looms. The villagers bred pigs, sheep and cows, and their farms had small enclosed fields where they grew crops using iron-tipped ploughs. There was also a rudimentary transport system consisting of rough tracks through the cleared areas of woodland.

Two such sites have been found in Worcestershire. One, excavated at Beckford, contained evidence of the round houses and a number of pits, which it is thought were used for storing grain and burning rubbish. In 1957 aerial photographs of Bewdley showed a similar site at Blackstone Rock, which was excavated in the 1970s and ’80s. Evidence of a settlement in Worcester is also thought to have existed as pots dating back to 400–100 BC were found in a ditch excavated by the cathedral.

The simple dwelling of Iron Age man.

Iron Age man is known for his hill forts. They were built using the natural slopes of a hill and wooden man-made defences erected around the sides. Known as earthworks, there are numerous examples around Worcestershire: British Camp and Midsummer Hill on the Malvern Hills, Wychbury Hill near Hagley, Hanbury Hill near Redditch, Berrow Hill near Martley, Gadbury Camp near Eldersfield, Conderton Camp between Evesham and Tewkesbury, Kemerton Camp on the summit of Bredon Hill, Areley Wood near Bewdley and, the largest of all, Woodbury Hill near Stourport-on-Severn.

On Bredon Hill the summit is crowned by the Bambury Stones. It is thought there may have been just one stone originally but over time the earth’s movements caused this to split into pieces. One stone is known as the Elephant Stone, as it resembles what appears to be a kneeling elephant. Over the centuries the stones were known for their so-called healing powers and right up until the twentieth century sickly children were passed through the gaps in the stones in the hope they may be cured.

MASSACRE IN THE IRON AGE

Kemerton Camp was built by the Dobunni tribe and was one in a line of twenty-seven that can be traced a length of almost 50 miles from Clifton Downs, near Bristol, to Bredon Hill. Each fort was built within signalling distance of its neighbour as protection against the Silures tribes in South Wales. The Dobunni were farmers and craftsmen who lived mainly in the south-west of the country, extending into the south of Worcestershire, and are thought to have been a peaceful community.

In the south of England was the war-like Belgae tribe, which originated from Gaul. It took no prisoners and the peaceful Dobunni tribe were probably an easy target. So was there an attack one fateful day? There are certainly stories of bloody and fierce battles around Bredon Hill, and excavations have revealed a deadly find. At some time the gate to the fort was burnt down and the tribe massacred. Numerous legs, arms and bodies were found lying about surrounded by pottery dating from between 100 BC and AD 100.

In AD 43 people were still living in their individual tribes, with a leader, warriors and workers in their settlements on the hills. But no longer were they the people of the Iron Age; they were now known as the Britons. Then an invader from many miles away appeared.

A NEW CIVILISATION ARRIVES

When the Romans arrived there were four ancient tribes in Worcestershire. In the south were the Dobunnis and in the north the Ordovices. To the west were the Silures and in the centre and the east, the Cornovi. On the whole none of them put up a lot resistance and when their hill settlements were burned they just moved into the valleys. However, one Worcestershire tribe did attempt to put up a fight. Legend has it that the leader of the ancient Britons, Caractacus, placed himself at British Camp on the Malvern Hills to guard against the Roman invasion. However, he expected the Romans to come from the west, but they didn’t, and as the ancient Britons didn’t use armour, as the Romans did, they were quickly overpowered.

After this initial skirmish the two civilizations lived in peace with each other and eventually become known as the Romano-British civilisation. But there is little evidence of Roman soldiers being based in Worcestershire. It seems to have been a place where civilians lived and worked.

In AD 50 a small Roman settlement grew on high ground by the River Severn. It was named Vertis and is thought to be the beginnings of Worcester as a large quantity of Roman pottery has been found in the southern parts of the city. Slightly downstream, on the banks opposite Kempsey, the remains of timber and oak boards were also found, and this suggests a bridge once stood there. Other parts of the county that show evidence of Roman occupation are in the Kidderminster area. Excavations around Wribbenhall revealed a farmstead and ditched enclosure from the latter part of the Roman occupation. A brooch and coins were found in Habberley and remains of a Roman villa were found in the Wyre Forest. This suggests there was a Roman settlement here for many years.

The Romans are famous for their roads. One of these, the Fosse Way, just misses the main area of Worcestershire, although it passes through two outlying parishes that once belonged to Worcestershire – Blockley and Tredington. The Romans came across the north of the county down Watling Street and Icknield Street, which ran from the Fosse Way in Gloucestershire and passed through Redditch on its way to South Yorkshire.

However, it seems that Droitwich became the main place inhabited by the Romans.

ROMAN SALINAE

The Romans were responsible for the development of Droitwich, which they named Roman Salinae (salt works), and which was one of the first settlements in the area. Evidence of mosaics found in Droitwich suggests a villa belonging to some important Roman person was built there. It appeared that there were eighteen rooms in this house, so it possibly belonged to an administrator in the salt industry of some repute. It burned down in the third century.

Other houses were built on the clifftop at Dodderhill overlooking Droitwich and a large fort was built at Bays Meadow, which is where the parish church, St Andrew’s, was later built. Skeletons found on the north-east side of Vines Lane suggest there was a cemetery there.

The Romans certainly took an interest in the existence of salt here as it has been suggested that Droitwich possibly played a part in the formation of the word salary. It derives from the word salarium, which was the allowance of salt given to the soldiers.

At the end of the third century tribes from Northern Europe began to travel across the North Sea, making spasmodic raids along the east coast. The Britons and the Romans defended as best they could but, having been recalled by Rome early in the fifth century, the Romans left England. Without them the Britons were defenceless against the Saxons, who were able to gradually spread across the country as the Britons fled and retreated to Wales and Cornwall.

The Saxons ruled England from 410 until 1066, initially setting up seven individual kingdoms.

THE KINGDOM OF HWICCE AND THE LAND OF MERCIA

In 577 the West Saxon King Cealwin won a great victory over the native Britons at Dyrham in Gloucestershire and the new kingdom of Hwicce was established. It took in what is now modern Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and the western part of Warwickshire and contained a mixture of Saxon and British stock who became known as the Anglo-Saxons.

The Hwicce, also known as the Wiccas, were heathens, and pagan burial sites have been excavated at Upton Snodsbury, Little Hampton and Blockley but they only ruled their kingdom independently for fifty years. In 628 they were defeated at the Battle of Cirencester by the armies of King Penda of Mercia and so became part of the Kingdom of Mercia.

The Hwicce now made their homes in the lower regions below the Severn and by the eighth century it is thought there were about 7,000 families spread over the area. Then, in 670, they settled in Roman Vertis, which gradually began to develop in importance.

AUGUSTINE’S OAK

Christianity had been introduced during the latter period of the Roman supremacy but with the arrival of the Saxons had only spread to parts of the country. In 597 King Ethelbert of Kent had been converted to Christianity by St Augustine, a Roman monk, and the monk was eager to convert the whole country. With the help of King Ethelbert, he arranged a meeting with Saxon dignitaries at a place on the borders of the Hwiccas and other West Saxon communities. The story tells that suspicions were aroused when rumours were heard of Augustine being an arrogant man and that he did not possess the humility expected of a man of God. Therefore the Saxons decided that if he remained seated when they approached, he was not a true religious man. Arriving at the meeting they found him seated underneath an oak tree and when he did not stand up to greet them they turned and returned across the river.

It has never been ascertained exactly where this oak tree was, but tradition has always claimed that it was at Mitre Oak near Hartlebury. The feeling was so strongly held that it was here in 1575 that the bishop and the clergy of Worcester chose to meet Queen Elizabeth on her journey through the county. This would fit in with the suggestion that the group of Saxon dignitaries had crossed the River Severn. This particular oak became so large that a gatekeeper used it to stable his three donkeys. It has gone now but a tree does still stand on the side of the Worcester to Kidderminster road, which is said to be a sapling from the original. This sapling is also now an old tree and is surrounded by an iron fence to protect it from interference.

Rock also has a claim as in Saxon times it was called Ther Ac (the oak). There certainly was an oak tree there at one time but it unfortunately met with a sad end in 1757. Close to this old oak was the toll keeper’s house. Being so old, the trunk had become hollow, so when the toll house was being rebuilt the gatekeeper decided to take shelter inside the trunk. It was a cold night so he decided to build a fire inside his temporary accommodation. Whether it was plain stupidity or complete ignorance, his actions were to have devastating consequences. The tree caught alight and within a few hours had been completely destroyed.

THE FIRST CHRISTIAN KING OF WORCESTER

King Penda ruled his kingdom from Tamworth which, following many other successful battles, became the most powerful in the country. He was a pagan and it wasn’t until he died in 655 that the whole country became Christian. His son, Paeda, married the daughter of the Christian King Oswy of Northumberland on the condition that he converted to the Christian faith.

In 680 Archbishop Theodore created the See of Mercia, with the Bishop’s seat being known as St Peter’s, which has long since disappeared. Around the same time, St Mary’s Church was built in Worcester and this was later to become the cathedral.

BIRTH OF THE CITY

There are conflicting stories as to how Worcester came into being. The Hwiccas did settle in the old Roman town of Vertis but they also farmed land on the banks of the Severn, which was probably near the remains of Vertis. They named it Wire-cester, the place of wares. Ceaster was, in actual fact, a Roman word meaning settlement or fort. But some say it was also known as Weogoran, the Saxon word for ‘people of the winding river’. Taking into account the Ceaster, this can also be translated as ‘fort of the Weogorans’.

Worcester soon became the main settlement in the area and before long had become the capital of what was still known as Hwicce. Although it belonged to Mercia, it was still considered a small kingdom in its own right and in 701 was ruled by Penda’s third son, King Ethelred. Then it was given a charter by Worfarnis, with its liberties being extended by King Offa of Mercia (757–795). In 877 walls were built around the perimeter to protect it against the Danes, which showed it was obviously considered an important town.

THE BIRTH OF AN ABBEY

In 701 the third Bishop of Worcester was Egwin, a nephew of the King of Mercia (possibly Ethelred), who travelled around the diocese preaching and baptising. With few churches around at that time, he would have used well-known landmarks or preaching crosses. It happened that one day a swineherd called Eoves saw a vision of the Madonna on the banks of the River Avon and rushed to Bishop Egwin to tell him what he had seen. The bishop immediately asked to be taken to the spot. He gave it his blessings, then founded a monastery there. This was to become Evesham Abbey, the name Evesham deriving from the swineherd’s name and the Saxon word ‘ham’, meaning settlement.

THE LEGEND OF KENELM

Below the Clent Hills in the north of the county is the site of a lost township. Kenelmstowe was an important town in medieval times and attracted many visitors due to its connections with a royal murder, a miracle and its holy spring.

Kenulf, King of Mercia, also known as Coenwulf, was the son of King Offa. When he died in 819 he left one young son, Kenelm, and two older daughters, Quendryda and Burgenhida. Quendryda, the eldest daughter, was entrusted with the guardianship of her young brother but she was jealous that just because he was a boy, he had become king. She was also very ambitious and was determined to be queen. But this could only happen if her brother was dead. Over the next few years the hatred festered until one day she persuaded her lover, Askobert, to murder her brother.

The summer months were spent on the Clent Hills where Kenulf had built a hunting lodge. So when a hunting trip was planned in the forests between the hills and Romsley, known as Cowbach Valley, Askobert had an ideal opportunity. The night before the hunt Kenelm had a dream. In it he climbed a large tree covered in flowers and lanterns. From the top he could see all around his kingdom. Suddenly the tree was being chopped down, and as it fell Kenelm turned into a white dove and flew away. When he told a servant, a wise old woman, about the dream she cried because she knew it meant he was going to die.

The following day as the hunt progressed, Kenelm stopped to rest. As he slept, Askobert went up to him, chopped his head off then buried him under a thorn bush. Quendryda announced that Kenelm had mysteriously disappeared and therefore it was her right to claim the throne. But she was always under the shadow of suspicion. Angry about these suspicions, she decreed that anyone who searched for the prince or even mentioned his name would be beheaded.

Months later the Pope was officiating at St Peter’s in Rome when a white dove flew in through the window carrying a scroll in its beak, which it dropped at his feet. The words on the scroll told of Kenelm’s body lying under a thorn in Cowbach. Intrigued by the message, the Pope sent word to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who then sent men out from Winchcombe to search the area around Clent. At first they had no idea where to look but were guided to the spot by a shaft of light and the lowing of a milk-white cow. As they lifted the body out of its makeshift grave a spring suddenly gushed from the earth, which, it was discovered, brought good health to anyone who drank from it.

As they returned to Winchcombe with the young boy’s body, all the bells began to ring at the abbey and crowds came out shouting, ‘He is God’s martyr! He is God’s martyr!’ Asking what all the commotion was about, Quendryda was told that her brother’s body had been found and the people were declaring him a martyr. At the time she was reading a book of psalms and caustically replied, ‘He is indeed God’s martyr, as truly as my eyes are resting on this psalter.’ With that her eyes fell from her face onto the pages of the open book and she died. No one could be found who was willing to bury her, so her body was thrown into a ditch and devoured by wolves and birds of prey.

A stone carving depicts the young King Kenelm on the walls of St Kenelm’s Church near Romsley.

The story continued that the young king was buried at the side of his father at the east end of Winchcombe Abbey. When excavations took place in 1815, two stone coffins were indeed found containing the body of an adult and the body of a child.

Kenelmstowe disappeared when the road between Bromsgrove and Dudley was diverted. However, close to the spot on Chapel Lane, Romsley, is St Kenelm’s Church. A short walk from the side of the church takes you to the spring, which still exists.

MORE VISITORS FROM OVERSEAS

In the ninth century the coastline of Britain, in particular the east coast, began to witness raids from other invaders – the Danes, more commonly known as the Vikings. During this period the black dragon boats of these intruders floated up the Severn and on more than one occasion reached the shallows of the Diglis, very close to the city walls. At the time the city was poorly defended and the citizens, on seeing these ferocious warriors, fled and hid in the neighbouring woods. Swarming over the walls, the Vikings did what the Vikings did and ransacked the whole town. They took whatever valuables they could find and set buildings on fire. Those who had been unable to hide in the woods were murdered.

One Dane discovered the Sanctus bell in the cathedral and in his eagerness to steal it delayed his return to the boats. He was left behind. When the people of Worcester returned they realised that one Viking on his own was not as fearsome as a group so he was easily captured. Angry at the devastation of their town, they flayed him alive. The man’s skin was then tanned and nailed to the doors of the cathedral, where it remained for hundreds of years. A Dr Prattinton of Bewdley once wrote that he remembered as a schoolboy in the 1780s being shown what was supposedly human skin on the inside of the north door of the cathedral.

During renovations in the early 1800s this old door was removed and forgotten but fifty years later Jabez Allies, a Worcester antiquarian, asked to search the cathedral and did find part of an old door on which was a parchment-like piece of material. On having it examined by the Royal College of Surgeons, it was confirmed that it was human skin and the hairs on it were from a person who had light hair.

Following this attack on Worcester, King Alfred held a special court to arrange for its rebuilding and gave half the royal taxes in Worcester for this to be achieved. Alfred’s connection to Worcestershire is through his daughter, Aethelflaed, who married Ethelred of Mercia. It was Ethelred who turned some of the towns into well-defended burghs, which were maintained by taxes on the local markets and streets. The first of these was Worcester. New walls were built around the city to replace the earlier ones but they were built further out, therefore producing a much larger area on the inside and also extending the town. The wall was to remain there until the 1600s.

Although Mercia was attacked during this period, there is little evidence of any Viking settlements in Worcestershire. The typical ending of Scandinavian place names are noticeably absent in the towns of Worcestershire. Of course, when the Danes did eventually conquer the eastern part of England an agreement was reached that the country would be divided in half. The Vikings would have one half and the Saxons the other. Worcestershire fell into the Saxon half.

When Alfred died in 899 his son, Edward, went on to conquer all the Danes’ land south of the Humber. The country now became ‘The Land of the Angles’ – in other words, England.

WORCESTERSHIRE, WARWICKSHIRE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE AND WINCHCOMBESHIRE

In 927 Aethelstan, King of Wessex and grandson of Alfred the Great, created the unified Kingdom of England. The country was now split into districts, which became known as shires. Each shire had its own fortified town, known as a burgh. These burghs became the town from which the county acquired its name. Each shire consisted of around 1,200 hides, a hide being the size of a piece of land that was large enough to support a family. Borders of each shire were arranged in a way to make the shires more or less equal for both tax purposes and military purposes. The old Hwiccan kingdom was too large for this purpose, so was divided into four shires – Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Gloucestershire and Winchcombeshire. However, the county of Winchcombeshire was short-lived. By the time of the Domesday Survey in 1086, for some reason not documented, it has disappeared. There are just the three counties we know today and Worcestershire has gained the area south of Evesham.

Many Anglo-Saxon place names have survived. The name Malvern derived from a mixture of Saxon and Welsh using the words Moel, the Saxon word for bare, and the Welsh, Bryn, meaning hill. Bredon combines two words that both, apparently, mean hill – bre and dun. Translated, Eckington, the farm of Ecca’s people, incorporates the name of the tribe of Ecca and the Saxon word tun or ton, which can either mean farm or village. Leah or Ley means wood, clearing or glade in woodland, so typical examples here are Beoley, the beekeeper’s clearing, and Arley, the wood of the eagle.

A COUNTY TAKES SHAPE

When Worcestershire was created it took into account the estates owned by the Bishop of Worcester, which included pieces of land not attached to the main area. These became known as islands and included the parishes of Shipston-on-Stour, Tredington, Blockley and Dudley.

In those early days part of Halesowen belonged to the Earl of Shrewsbury, so therefore it was initially included in the county of Shropshire. Bewdley was also an anomaly as no one seemed to know if it was in Worcestershire or Shropshire. Not being included in either county, it became a sanctuary for criminals and it wasn’t until 1544, after an Act of Parliament made by Thomas Tye, that it became part of Worcestershire.

With Worcester being the seat of an important bishop, it grew quite rapidly during the following 200 years, probably more than any other town in the county. But as trade increased in the tenth century other towns also began to grow. The first to show signs of growth was Bromsgrove, as it is mentioned in ancient documents of 909. Evesham and Pershore’s growth were helped by them being monastic estates, plus both having the early beginnings of marketplaces. Tenbury was also growing as it is mentioned as being on a trade route from Pensax.