Worcester, Worcestershire

The first significant clash of the Civil War and the last major battle of the whole conflict were fought four miles apart, either side of this one city, nine years and a kingdom apart.

History & Significance

Worcester stands at a fording point on the Severn, and almost everything that has happened to it follows from that fact. The crossing made it worth holding, and so it was held, taken, besieged and burned by successive people who needed the road south out of the Midlands.

The city has a claim few places in England can match. On 23 September 1642, at Powick Bridge just south of the city, a Royalist force routed a Parliamentarian detachment in what was the first significant engagement of the English Civil War. On 3 September 1651, barely four miles away, a Parliamentarian army of around twenty-eight thousand men brought the Wars of the Three Kingdoms to their end at the Battle of Worcester. The first and last actions of a conflict that consumed three nations were fought within an afternoon's walk of one another.

Long before that, the site was already old. Lewis records the city under the name Caer Guorangon in Nennius's list of British cities, chosen for a position near a fordable stretch of the Severn on the edge of thick forest. The Dobunni held this country before the Roman conquest, part of the tribe submitting to the legions in AD 43. Three major Roman routes converge within three hundred metres of the modern centre, and a settlement recorded tentatively as Vertis sat a kilometre from where the cathedral now stands.

The English Civil War opened properly at Powick Bridge, three and a half kilometres south of Worcester, on 23 September 1642. Prince Rupert's cavalry caught a Parliamentarian force under Colonel John Brown in the fields by the river and broke it, covering the withdrawal of a Royalist convoy toward the city.

It was a small action by the standards of what followed, a few hundred men on each side, but it mattered out of proportion to its size. It was the first time the two armies met in strength, and it established a reputation for Rupert's horse that shaped how both sides fought for the next three years.

The bridge still stands, and the ground either side of it is open. The old bridge is a listed structure, and the fields around it are among the most promising landscape in the county for material from the campaign.

Worcester declared for the King and held to it. The city was besieged in 1643 and again, decisively, from May to July 1646, when it was among the last Royalist strongholds in England to surrender. Hartlebury Castle, sixteen kilometres north, gave up in the same year.

Its motto, Fidelis Civitas, the Faithful City, was granted afterwards and is still on the coat of arms. The loyalty was real but it was not universal, and the city's willingness to change its mind under pressure is a more interesting story than the heraldry admits.

Substantial sections of the medieval city wall survive as scheduled monuments, running behind and beneath the modern streets from Clare Street to Talbot Street. Civil War earthworks thrown up during the fighting survive at Tamar Close, half a kilometre from the cathedral, and the fort on the high ground south east of the city, Fort Royal, is scheduled.

Charles II marched south from Scotland with a largely Scottish army and made his stand at Worcester. Cromwell brought roughly twenty-eight thousand men against him. The fighting was not confined to the open ground outside the walls: it reached into the city itself, and the cathedral tower was used as a firing position during the battle.

The Royalist army was destroyed. Charles escaped, beginning the six weeks of hiding that took him through Boscobel and eventually to France. It was the last major battle of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, and it ended the war that Powick Bridge had opened nine years earlier a few fields away.

Fighting at Sidbury Gate, a kilometre from the cathedral, and the action at Upton fifteen kilometres downstream are both recorded, and the Battle of Worcester is a Registered Battlefield.

The Roman presence here is real but modest and imperfectly understood. The settlement recorded as Vertis sits about a kilometre from the centre, there is evidence of second century iron working near Talbot Street, and the salt town at Droitwich, Salinae, lies nine kilometres north. Three routes, Riknield Street among them, pass within three hundred metres of the pin.

The Saxon city is better documented. Lewis records that in 894 Ethelred and Elfleda rebuilt Worcester after the Danes destroyed it, and that Waerfred, bishop of Worcester, obtained from Ethelred a grant of half the royal dues to fortify the city and the cathedral. Of the fortresses he raised around the cathedral, only Edgar's Tower now remains.

By the time of Domesday the surrounding country was densely settled. Fifty seven recorded places lie within reach of the city, including Worcester itself, Perry, Northwick and Clopton, and the tribute of salt from Droitwich runs through the Worcestershire entries.

Three hundred and forty recorded finds lie within five kilometres of the cathedral. The largest group is Roman, a hundred and twenty one objects, followed by post-medieval at a hundred and seven and medieval at seventy two. Iron Age material is present but sparse.

The Civil War material is the distinctive part. Powder measures, cannon balls and a sword belt have all come out of the ground here, the physical residue of two battles and two sieges within a few kilometres of each other.

Forty five scheduled monuments sit within the search area, from the city walls and Fort Royal to moated sites, a motte and bailey at Castle Green, and the salt production remains at Droitwich.

See the full research report for Worcester, Worcestershire

Scheduled monuments, Domesday records, geology, Roman roads, historical literature: the same report Aubrey generates for paying customers, free to read.