Siege of Worcester
Who Fought
History & Significance
The second and longest siege of Worcester (21 May – 23 July 1646) took place towards the end of the First English Civil War, when Parliamentary forces under the command of Thomas Rainsborough besieged the city of Worcester, accepting the capitulation of the Royalist defenders on 22 July. The next day the Royalists formally surrendered possession of the city, and the Parliamentarians entered Worcester 63 days after the siege began.
At the start of the English Civil War Worcester City walls were in a state of disrepair, and only part of the wall was defended by a ditch. There were seven gates: Foregate to the north, Saint Martin's and Friar's to the east, and Sidbury was the main southern gate—Frog Gate below Worcester Castle was also on the south side. On the western side (facing the Severn) there was Priory Gate overlooking the ferry and Bridge (or Water) Gate at the end of Newport Street that guarded the Severn bridge entrance to the city. The gates themselves were still opened in the morning and closed each evening, but they were rotten and in a bad state of repair ("so much so that they would hardly shut, and if they were actually closed there was neither lock or bolt to secure them").
Beginning at the north-west corner of the wall adjoining the river at the bottom of Newport Street, where the Bridge Gate stood, opening out on to the bridge, the wall ran along the river bank for a short distance so as to include St. Clement's Church, which then stood in the north-western angle of the wall. The walls then ran along the south side of the Butts. Continuing along the south side of Shaw Street, by the side of the Berkeley Hospital, it included that institution in the city. It crossed over Foregate Street just where the Hop Market Hotel stands. Here, at the corner of the street between the Berkeley Hospital and the Hop Market Hotel, the gate — the north, or Foregate— stood. The wall then continued along the south side of Sansome Street. On reaching Lowesmoor it crossed over on the top of the hill and ran along the line just on the city centre side of City Walls Road (the A38) crossing Silver Street. Saint Martins Gate was located close to Corn Market and about where the roundabout is.
Passing along the back of New Street and Friar Street, where traces of it can still be seen in places, it reached Friar's Gate, which stood at the back of the old City Gaol, now the site of Laslett's Almshouse Charity, Union Street, formerly a Dominican House. The wall then went along at the back of Friar Street until it reached Sidbury. Here, just on the city side of the modern Sidbury Bridge over the canal, stood the main south gate of the city, the Sidbury Gate. The wall then ran south of Saint Peter's Church (Saint Peter's Street), across the site of the Porcelain Museum, until it reached the gate known as Frog Gate (on what was Frog lane and is now Severn Street). The wall then ran north-west joining onto a covered way that led to the Castle Hill. From this came another wall which ran down the lower part of Severn Street, until it reached the river (close to the Diglis House Hotel).
The ground they fought on
The site of Siege of Worcester lies on Triassic Rocks (Undifferentiated), bedrock that formed in the Triassic. The rock here is mudstone, siltstone and sandstone.
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- Siege of Worcester · Wikidata
- Siege_of_Worcester · Wikipedia