EVESHAM, a market town and municipal borough in the Evesham parliamentary division, Worcestershire, England, 107 m. N.W. of London by G.W. and L.M.S. railways. Pop. (1931) 8,799. On the right (north) bank of the Avon, in the rich and beautiful Vale of Evesham, the district, mainly agricultural, is devoted to market-gardening and orchards. Evesham is a place of considerable antiquity; a Benedictine house was founded here by St. Egwin in the 8th century. It became a wealthy abbey, but was almost wholly destroyed at the Dissolution. The church yard is entered by a Norman gateway, and there survives a mag nificent isolated bell-tower
, of the best ornate Perpen dicular workmanship. A single decorated arch is almost all that remains of the abbey walls, but near the bell-tower are the parish churches of St. Lawrence (16th century) and All Saints as well as the chapel of Abbot Lichfield, who built the bell tower. Other buildings include an Elizabethan town hall, the grammar school, founded by Abbot Lichfield, and the picturesque almonry. The borough includes the parish of Bengeworth St. Peter. Evesham (Homme, Ethomme) grew up around the Benedictine abbey, and in 1055, Edward the Confessor gave it a market and the privileges of a commercial town. It is mentioned in Domesday but it is uncertain when the town first became a borough. Before 1482 the abbot practically had control of the town, and his steward presided over the court at which the bailiffs were chosen. After the Dissolution the manor, markets, fairs and other priv ileges were granted to Sir Phillip Hoby. In 1604 James I. granted the burgesses their first charter, but in the following year, by a second charter, he incorporated Evesham with the village of Bengeworth. Evesham received two later charters, but in 1688, that of 16o5 was restored and still remains the governing charter of the borough. Evesham returned two members to parliament in 1295 and again in 1337, after which date the privilege lapsed until 1604. Its two members were reduced to one by the act of 1867, and the borough was disfranchised in 1885.
Battle.—Evesham gave its name to the famous battle, fought on Aug. 4, 1265, between the forces of Simon de Mont fort, earl of Leicester, and the royalist army under Prince Ed ward. As the result of the victory of Lewes (q.v.), the baronial party was supreme throughout most of England. Only on the Welsh March was the royal cause sustained and thither de Mont fort moved, taking with him the king and Prince Edward. But at Hereford, on May 28, .Edward escaped to join his adherents in the border counties. As a counterbalance de Montfort enlisted the aid of the Welsh themselves, and took the castles of Mon mouth and Usk. Meanwhile, however, Edward and the royalists had secured all the bridges over the Severn in his rear, Gloucester being the last, and then moved down the west bank against de Montfort, now at Newport. They not only threw him back across the Usk but frustrated his plan of transporting his army back to England by a successful sea-raid with three galleys against the ships which he had collected at Newport. De Montfort was thus forced to undertake a roundabout and trying march north through the barren districts of Wales, while Edward, after abandoning the pursuit, fell back to Worcester to hold afresh the Severn against him. A new factor was introduced by the approach of de Mont fort's son with an army of relief from eastern England. Placed between two opposing armies, closing upon him, if gropingly, Ed ward showed a real and, for a time, remarkable grasp of strat egy. While de Montfort himself was still some distance from the Severn, Edward left Worcester on the evening of Aug. i, marched during the night the 3o miles to Kenilworth, where de Montfort's son lay and, taking the baronial army by surprise in the early dawn, captured and destroyed the bulk of it without resistance. Edward, without delay, countermarched to Worcester, to find that de Montfort himself had meantime ferried his army across the Severn at a point four miles south of the town. It was clear that, in ignorance of his son's defeat, he would be moving to join him at Kenilworth. Leaving Worcester once more on the evening of Aug. 3, Edward's army moved in three columns by different roads but all converging on Evesham where they would bar de Mont fort's route to Kenilworth. Although the surprise was not so complete as at Kenilworth it was sufficient to give Edward an in itial advantage over a hastily assembled enemy, whose first idea was that the approaching force was his son's from Kenilworth, a delusion fostered by Edward's ruse of displaying enemy banners. Caught in the bend of the river Avon by the converging columns, and surrounded on all sides, the old earl attempted to cut his way out of the town to the northward. At first the fury of his assault forced back the superior numbers of the prince ; but Simon's Welsh levies melted away and his enemies closed the last avenue of escape. The final struggle took place on Green Hill, a little to the north-west of the town, where the devoted friends of de Montfort formed a ring round their leader and died with him. The spot is marked with an obelisk.
