Worcestershire is a county of wide, fertile valleys, drained by the Severn and Avon, the Teme and the Stour and ringed by some of England’s best known hills, including the Malverns and the Cotswolds.
This concise but comprehensive account is based on a wealth of published and unpublished research. It is both highly readable and well illustrated, and will be of interest both to the general reader and to students and local groups seeking to put their own work within a wider perspective.
Particular attention is given to the settlement of the county, especially to its colonisation by the Hwicce in the 6th and 7th centuries. There are fascinating insights into the lives of ordinary people through the ages, based on records and later probate inventories.
Throughout, local happenings are related to national trends, and dramatic events such as the Battle of Evesham in 1265 and the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 are highlighted. The contrasts between rural and urban areas are explored, and products such as the carpets of Kidderminster, the salt of Droitwich and the glass at Stourbridge are seen within a wider economic context. There is much here also about individuals, some of whom, such as Edward Elgar and the poet Piers Plowman, are already well known, but others emerge from local records for the first time. The book comes right up to the 1990s, and the triumphs of Worcestershire County Cricket Club and the day-to-day concerns of the Archers are included in the final chapter.
Contents:
List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
Preface
Introduction: Worcestershire’s Historians and Writers
1. The Size and Shape of Worcestershire, and its Physical Features
2. Prehistoric and Roman Worcestershire, before AD 410
3. Saxons, Hwicce and Danes, 410-1066
4. The Norman Conquest and Domesday Worcestershire, 1066-1086
5. The Middle Ages, 1086-1485
6. Development, Change and Contention: The Tudors and early Stuarts, 1485-1642
7. The Civil Wars and Commonwealth, 1642-1660
8. Restoration to Reform: Late Stuart and Georgian Worcestershire
9. Victorian Worcestershire and the years before and after, 1832-1914
10. Modern Worcestershire, 1914-1990
Bibliography
Index
