Worcestershire

WORCESTERSHIRE, a midland county of England. Area (excluding water), 455,214 acres. It covers a portion of the rich valleys of the Severn and Avon with their tributaries, the Stour and the Teme. The Avon valley, known as the vale of Evesham, lies on the Lias clays, and provides an excellent soil for orchards and market-gardening. The Jurassic escarpment of the Cotswold hills rises sharply from it in the south-east, the outlier of Bredon hill being a conspicuous spur. Salmon and lampreys are taken in the Severn; trout and grayling in the Teme and its feeders. The Malverns rise from the flat vale of Worcester and reach a height of and 1,114 ft. in the Worcester and Hereford beacons.

The ridge is continued in the Abberley Hills to the north. The Lickey Hills (90o ft.) in which there are Silurian, Cambrian and Pre-Cambrian rocks, cross the north-east corner of the county. Their northern parts, the Clent Hills (1,028 ft.), are formed of Permian breccias. Partly within the county are the sites of two ancient forests. That of the Wyre on the northern boun dary, retains some of its ancient character; but Malvern Chase is hardly recognizable. Road metal is extensively quarried in the Malvern hills (Pre-Cambrian and Cambrian) and in the Lickey hills (Cambrian) ; lime is obtained from the Silurian limestones; coal is mined in portions of the Forest of Wyre, and the South Staffordshire coal-fields which come within the county.

History and Early Settlement.

Worcestershire was largely wooded in early times and is consequently not rich in prehistoric remains but some stone implements have been found on the sur rounding hills and some bronze implements along the Severn, pointing perhaps to river communications or perhaps to occupa tion of the river banks. The great earthwork on the Malvern hills of Romano-British or late pre-Roman date should be spe cially mentioned, and there are others at Berrow Hill above the Teme west of Worcester and at Round Hill by Spetchley.

The earliest English settlers were a tribe of the Hwiccas of Gloucestershire, who spread along the Severn and Avon valleys in the 6th century. By 679 the Hwiccan kingdom was formed into

a separate diocese with its see at Worcester, and the Hwiccas had made themselves masters of nearly the whole of the modern county. From this date the town of Worcester became not only a religious centre, but the chief point of trading and military com munication between England and Wales. The shire originated as an administrative area after the recovery of Mercia from the Danes. Worcester was destroyed by Hardicanute in 1041.

In no county has the monastic movement played a more important part. Foundations existed at Worcester, Evesham, Pershore and Fladbury in the 8th century; at Great Malvern in the iith century, and in the 12th and 13th centuries at Little Malvern, Westwood, Bordesley, Whistones, Cookhill, Dudley, Halesowen and Astley. At the time of the Domesday Survey more than half Worcestershire was in the hands of the church. This prevented the rise of a local aristocracy, and Dudley castle was the sole residence of a feudal baron. Worcester Castle passed in the 12th century to the Beauchamps, who owned Elmley and Hanley castles. The possessions of William Fitz Osbern in Doddingtree hundred and the Teme valley fell to the crown in 1074 and passed to the Mortimers. Hanley Castle and Malvern Chase were granted by Henry III. to Gilbert de Clare. The early political history focusses on the city of Worcester. In the Civil War of the 17th century Worcestershire was conspicuously loyal.

The Droitwich salt-industry was very important at the time of the Domesday Survey. In the 13th and 14th centuries Bordes ley monastery and the abbeys of Evesham and Pershore exported wool, and in the 16th century the Worcestershire clothing industry gave employment to 8,000 ; fruit-culture with the manufacture of cider and perry, nail-making and glass-making also flourished. The clothing industry declined in the 17th century, but the silk manuf acture replaced it at Kidderminster and Blockley. Coal and iron were mined at Dudley in the 13th century.