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103-630: The Malvern Hills are in the English counties of Worcestershire , Herefordshire and a small area of northern Gloucestershire , dominating the surrounding countryside and the towns and villages of the district of Malvern . The highest summit affords a panorama of the Severn Valley , the hills of Herefordshire and the Welsh mountains, parts of thirteen counties, the Bristol Channel , and

206-586: A ley line passed along the Malvern Hills through several wells including St Ann's Well, Holy Well , Walms Well and St. Pewtress Well. Interest in Watkin's theories subsided in the 1930s but saw a revival in the late 1960s. In The Ley Hunter's Companion (1979) Paul Devereux theorised that a 10-mile alignment he called the "Malvern Ley" passed through St Ann's Well, the Wyche Cutting , a section of

309-613: A day. Mazak UK have the parent company's European manufacturing facility (for CNC machine tools) in the north of Worcester. Nearby on the Blackpole Ind Est, Froude Hofmann have their world headquarters, who make dynamometers . Roxel UK develops solid-fuel rockets for missiles south of Kidderminster and in Hartlebury . The West Midlands Safari Park is in Bewdley , west of Kidderminster. Morgan Technical Ceramics

412-609: A dry period. The Malvern Hills have been designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) by Natural England and an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty by the Countryside Agency (now Natural England). Features of the Malvern Hills AONB include wide areas of acid grassland and heath on the summit and mixed broadleaved woodland and Ancient Semi-Natural Woodland on the lower hills and valleys. There are three areas of Ancient Semi-Natural Woodland in

515-654: A framework for administering the resources of each burhs ' outlying estates. It was a separate ealdormanship briefly in the 10th century before forming part of the Earldom of Mercia in the 11th century. The last known Anglo-Saxon Sheriff of Worcestershire was Cyneweard of Laughern . During the Middle Ages , much of the county's economy was based on the wool trade. Many areas of its dense forests, such as Feckenham Forest , Horewell Forest and Malvern Chase , were royal hunting grounds subject to forest law. After

618-531: A key role in ensuring that the area of the AONB is larger than that originally proposed. The AONB Partnership work together to conserve and enhance the Malvern Hills AONB. The Partnership has a formal structure including representatives from private and public enterprises, officers from local authorities, the Countryside Agency and the Malvern Hills Conservators. The Malvern Hills are home to

721-577: A large turnover; nearby to west Metalrax , headquartered in Alvechurch , make (via subsidiaries) most of the bakeware sold in the UK. Roger Dyson Group manufactures auto-recovery vehicles in north Droitwich. South of Bromsgrove, L.G. Harris & Co make paintbrushes . Lea & Perrins is in Worcester . Joy Mining Machinery are in the west of Worcester. Worcester, Bosch Group make 1,200 boilers

824-494: A natural means of scrub management and restore several water features. The project was spearheaded by the Malvern Hills AONB Service, in partnership with Worcestershire County Council, Herefordshire Council, Malvern Hills Conservators, Malvern Spa Association, English Nature , Countryside Agency, National Trust and English Heritage . Members of the public were concerned that by erecting temporary fences on

927-592: A running club and doubling as a rugby club from 1880, the football club was founded in 1886. In 1987, the club won the FA Trophy for the first time, and seven years later reached the fifth round of the FA Cup , also winning the GM Vauxhall Conference title in 1994 but being denied Football League status as their Aggborough Stadium did not meet capacity requirements. However, when the club next won

1030-400: A series of faults and folds which have the effect of bringing old Malvernian rocks to the surface. Being largely hard igneous rocks, they have resisted erosion better than those of the surrounding countryside and result in a striking line of hills of which the Malvern Hills are the most impressive. This line is considered to mark the edge of two terranes – two once separate fragments of

1133-536: A single non-metropolitan county of Hereford and Worcester . The County Boroughs of Dudley and Warley, along with Stourbridge and Halesowen, were incorporated into the new West Midlands Metropolitan county . The West Midlands County Council existed for only a few years before abolition in April 1986, although the West Midlands still exists as a ceremonial county . In the 1990s UK local government reform ,

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1236-469: A site closer to the river Severn. There is therefore no evidence that Roman presence ended the prehistoric settlement at British Camp. However, excavations at nearby Midsummer Hillfort , Bredon Hill and Croft Ambrey all show evidence of violent destruction around the year 48 AD. This may suggest that the British Camp was abandoned or destroyed around the same time. During the medieval period,

1339-522: A small section of Amblecote . The Local Government Act redefined its status and the County Borough of Dudley became part of Staffordshire, the county of which all of these areas had been part. At the same time, Worcestershire gained a new county borough named Warley , which was an amalgamation of Oldbury Urban District , Rowley Regis Urban District , the County Borough of Smethwick and parts of Dudley and Tipton . During this reorganisation,

1442-511: A two-tier non-metropolitan county also called Worcestershire . The county historically had complex boundaries , and included Dudley and the southwestern suburbs of Birmingham . The River Severn flows through the centre of the county from north to south, forming a wide plain. The southwest of the county contains part of the Malvern Hills , a National Landscape which contains Worcestershire Beacon , at 425 m (1,394 ft)

1545-416: A wide range of outdoor sports and leisure activities, including walking, mountain biking, horse riding, orienteering, hang-gliding, paragliding, model aircraft flying, fishing, climbing and diving. The Worcestershire Way is a waymarked long-distance trail located within the county of Worcestershire . It runs 50 km (31 miles) from Bewdley to Great Malvern . It is an important recreation resource in

1648-407: Is a tiny, man-made cave near the ridge of the hills called Clutter's Cave (or Giant's Cave or Hermit's Cave or Waum's Cave, after Walm's Well which is located on the boundary of News Wood below). The cave has been excavated into pillow lavas . Some of the rounded 'pillow' shapes are still visible around the entrance to the cave. The quality of Malvern water is attributable to its source. The rocks of

1751-467: Is also home to the world's oldest continually published newspaper, the Berrow's Journal , established in 1690. Malvern was one of the centres of the 19th-century rise in English spa towns due to Malvern water being believed to be very pure, containing "nothing at all". The 2011 census found the population of Worcestershire to be 566,169, an increase of 4.4% from the 2001 population of 542,107. Though

1854-813: Is headquartered at Lickhill in Stourport-on-Severn . Egbert H. Taylor in Elmley Lovett , near Hartlebury is a manufacturer of metal bins. Liquid crystal displays were developed in 1972 in conjunction with the Royal Radar Establishment , where Geoffrey Dummer invented the idea of the integrated circuit in 1952. It was based in Malvern , and became the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment , which developed thermal imaging and pyroelectric infrared detectors , and

1957-407: Is in an indefinable way 'home' to me, as no other part of the world is." Terrane There is also an older usage of the term terrane , which described a series of related rock formations or an area with a preponderance of a particular rock or rock group. A tectonostratigraphic terrane did not necessarily originate as an independent microplate , since it may not contain the full thickness of

2060-844: Is now a large site owned by QinetiQ . Morgan Motor Company is in Malvern Link . Commsoft RMS is in Evesham . For many years Group 4 Security , which was the largest security company in Europe, had its headquarters in Broadway , on the edge of the Cotswolds ; G4S Integrated Services now has its HQ there. Local government in Worcestershire has changed several times since the middle of the 19th century. Worcestershire contained numerous exclaves , which were areas of land cut off from

2163-467: Is shown below: Worcestershire Worcestershire ( / ˈ w ʊ s t ər ʃ ər / WUUST -ər-shər , /- ʃ ɪər / -⁠sheer ; written abbreviation: Worcs ) is a ceremonial county in the West Midlands of England . It is bordered by Shropshire , Staffordshire , and the West Midlands county to the north, Warwickshire to the east, Gloucestershire to

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2266-455: Is that the present spatial relations are incompatible with the inferred geologic histories. Where terranes that lie next to each other possess strata of the same age, they are considered separate terranes only if it can be demonstrated that the geologic evolutions are different and incompatible. There must be an absence of intermediate lithofacies that could link the strata. The concept of tectonostratigraphic terrane developed from studies in

2369-608: Is the third short story in Japanese-English author Kazuo Ishiguro 's collection Nocturnes (2009). The legend of the Shadow of the Ragged Stone, a shadow appearing to arise from the hilltop under particular meteorological conditions said to bring ill-fortune to those on whom it falls, features in many literary sources. It is the subject of the novel "The Shadow of the Ragged Stone" by Charles F. Grindrod, which tells

2472-507: The Cotswolds AONB. Worcestershire contains a broad expanse of green belt area, widening to over 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) in places. It is part of the larger belt surrounding the West Midlands county, and first drawn up from the 1950s. All of the county's districts other than Malvern Hills contain some portion of the belt. The largest and most successful football club in the county is Kidderminster Harriers . Founded in 1877 as

2575-404: The Cotswolds & Malverns Line which operates between Oxford via Worcester Shrub Hill and Worcester Foregate Street to Hereford . Direct trains to the area are available from Birmingham Snow Hill or Birmingham New Street and London Paddington . Several local bus services connect Malvern with the surrounding area. Long-distance direct bus services connect Malvern with other cities in

2678-734: The County Borough of Birmingham , on 1 October 1891. This was followed by Quinton Urban District , which was ceded to Birmingham in November 1909, and then by the Rural District of Yardley and the greater part of the Urban District of King's Norton and Northfield , which were absorbed into Birmingham under the Greater Birmingham Scheme on 9 November 1911. Thus these areas were transferred from Worcestershire to Warwickshire. Dudley's historical status within

2781-534: The Diocese of Worcester and through its aristocratic links ensured that the exclave was governed on a largely autonomous basis. Worcester was designated a county corporate , and thus became separate from the rest of Worcestershire. In 1926, Dudley County Borough council purchased several square miles of land to the north of the town centre, mostly in Sedgley ( Staffordshire ), including Dudley Castle . This

2884-832: The High Middle Ages the county was the site of the Battle of Evesham , in which Simon de Montfort was defeated, and in 1651 the Battle of Worcester was the last major engagement of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms . During the Industrial Revolution the north of the county was part of the Black Country , a major manufacturing centre, Kidderminster became famous for carpet production, and Worcester for porcelain . The county borders Herefordshire to

2987-694: The Kingdom of Mercia during the 7th century and became part of the unified Kingdom of England in 927. Worcestershire was established as an administrative and defensive unit in the early tenth century. Its purpose was to take into account and defend the estates within the northern area of the historic See of Worcester , held by the Episcopus Hwicciorum and Worcester Priory , along with the Abbots of Pershore , Westminster and Evesham . The shires and its sub-divisions known as hundreds , formed

3090-737: The Norman conquest of England ; the Domesday Book noted in 1086 that in seven of the twelve hundreds covering Worcestershire, the Crown had no authority. The Crown's authority was replaced by the Bishop of Worcester and the Abbots at Pershore, Westminster and Evesham. William the Conqueror gave to his allies and friends manors and parishes captured from the Anglo-Saxons. Despite

3193-597: The Severn valley. The Severn is the United Kingdom's longest river and flows through Bewdley , Stourport-on-Severn and Worcester . The River Avon flows through the Worcestershire town on Evesham and joins the Severn at Tewkesbury , Gloucestershire . Several coniferous and deciduous woodlands are located in the north of the county. The Vale of Evesham runs through the south of the county and to its south are

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3296-653: The Shire Ditch , Midsummer Hill, Whiteleaved Oak , Redmarley D'Abitot and Pauntley. In City of Revelation (1973) British author John Michell theorised that Whiteleaved Oak is the centre of a circular alignment he called the "Circle of Perpetual Choirs" and is equidistant from Glastonbury , Stonehenge , Goring-on-Thames and Llantwit Major . The theory was investigated by the British Society of Dowsers and used as background material by Phil Rickman in his novel The Remains of an Altar (2006). "Malvern Hills"

3399-831: The Southern Premier League , and Worcester City of the Midland Football League . The county is home to Worcestershire County Cricket Club , traditionally the first stop on any touring national side's schedule in England. Formed officially in 1865, the Club initially played in Boughton Park, before moving to its current New Road ground, which today can host 5,500 spectators, in 1895. The club has won five County Championships in its history, most recently in 1989. Worcester Rugby Football Club,

3502-482: The West Midlands ). Worcestershire County Council was reformed, although some services are shared with the newly formed Herefordshire Council , including waste management and the youth offending service. The former Hereford and Worcester districts of Redditch, Worcester, Bromsgrove, Wychavon and Wyre Forest were retained with little or no change. However the Leominster and Malvern Hills districts straddled

3605-746: The Worcester Warriors , are the county's largest and most successful Rugby Union team, having been promoted to the Premiership in 2004. The Warriors were relegated to the RFU Championship in 2010 but rebounded back to the Premiership in 2011. Worcester Warriors play at the Sixways Stadium on the outskirts of Worcester, holding over 12,000 spectators, thus making it the largest stadium in the county. Sixways has hosted

3708-407: The lithosphere . It is a piece of crust that has been transported laterally, usually as part of a larger plate, and is relatively buoyant due to thickness or low density. When the plate of which it was a part subducted under another plate, the terrane failed to subduct, detached from its transporting plate, and accreted onto the overriding plate. Therefore, the terrane transferred from one plate to

3811-408: The ' Shire Ditch ', a late Bronze Age boundary earthwork possibly dating from around 1000 BC, was constructed along part of the crest of the hills near the site of later settlements. The Wyche Cutting, a mountain pass through the hills was in use in prehistoric times as part of the salt route from Droitwich to South Wales. A 19th-century discovery of over two hundred metal money bars suggests that

3914-497: The 1800s. In 1884, the Malvern Hills Conservators were established through an Act of Parliament to preserve the natural aspect of the hills and protect them from encroachments. However, by this time large-scale quarrying had already begun. Quarry works were set in motion in the 1870s at Tank Quarry and at Little Malvern by Pyx Granite Company. The Hills Conservators lobbied parliament to pass an Act limiting

4017-449: The 1970s of the complicated Pacific Cordilleran orogenic margin of North America , a complex and diverse geological potpourri that was difficult to explain until the new science of plate tectonics illuminated the ability of crustal fragments to "drift" thousands of miles from their origin and attach themselves, crumpled, to an exotic shore. Such terranes were dubbed " accreted terranes " by geologists . Geologist J. N. Carney writes: It

4120-499: The 19th century, Worcester was a centre for the manufacture of gloves; the town of Kidderminster became a centre for carpet manufacture, and Redditch specialised in the manufacture of needles, springs and hooks. Droitwich Spa , situated on large deposits of salt, was a centre of salt production from Roman times, with one of the principal Roman roads running through the town. These old industries have since declined, to be replaced by other, more varied light industry . The county

4223-569: The AONB were also renovated. The Malvern Hills Trust is the working name for the Malvern Hills Conservators and manages most parts of the Hills and the surrounding Commons, some other parcels of land and many roadside verges. They were established in 1884 and are governed by five Acts of Parliament , the Malvern Hills Acts 1884, 1909, 1924, 1930 and 1995. They are a voluntary body of twenty-nine members. Eleven are directly elected under

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4326-596: The AONB. The Geopark Way is a 175 km (109 miles) long-distance trail which runs from Bridgnorth to Gloucester and passes through the Abberley and Malvern Hills Geopark. The route was devised to highlight geology, landscape and associated heritage. The Malvern Hills Geocentre is located halfway along the Geopark Way , at the Wyche . This official visitor centre gives more information on interactive iPads about

4429-534: The Birmingham boundary at Frankley , Rubery and Rednal . Frankley parish was later split into two: New Frankley and the area around Bartley Reservoir transferred from Bromsgrove District to Birmingham in April 1995; but the small village of Frankley remained in Worcestershire and became a new civil parish under the same name. From 1974, the central and southern parts of the county were amalgamated with Herefordshire and with Worcester County Borough to form

4532-597: The Conference title six years later, their stadium had been upgraded and promotion was granted, giving the county its first (and thus far only) Football League members. However, the club's Football League membership was short-lived, as Harriers were relegated back to the Conference in 2005 after just five years in the Football League, and have yet to reclaim their status. The county is also represented by Alvechurch , Bromsgrove Sporting and Redditch United of

4635-575: The Countryside Agency to take the temperature of rural tourism in the wake of the crisis. In 2006, Worcestershire County Council was awarded £770,000 by the Heritage Lottery Fund for restoration work and preservation of the area by fitting cattle grids to roads across the Hills and encouraging local landowners to allow sheep to wander across their land. As part of the Malvern Heritage Project nine water features within

4738-846: The Earth's crust now joined as one – the Wrekin Terrane to the west and the Charnwood Terrane to the east. The main face of Gullet Quarry shows a cross-section through the Precambrian rock and exhibits many rock types including diorite , granite , gneiss , schist , pegmatite and dolerite . The evidence of the complex history of earth movements which formed the Hills can be seen by multiple joints, fractures, faults and shears, which make identifying changes in rock types difficult. Mineral deposits such as haematite , calcite and epidote can be seen within these features. There

4841-788: The Local Elections ( Principal areas ) Rules by the residents of the wards who contribute to the Conservators' funds through a levy in their Council Tax , seventeen are appointed by local authorities and one by the Church Commissioners . The total area under their jurisdiction is over 1,200 hectares (3,000 acres). The Malvern Hills were designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) in 1959. The designation covers 105 square kilometres (41 sq mi) and includes parts of Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire. The Malvern Hills Conservators played

4944-453: The Malvern Hills SSSI: Hollybush Roughs between the boundary of Castlemorton Common and the Midsummer Hill fort, Park Wood in West Malvern and an area near Holy Well above Malvern Wells . Key AONB species include dormouse , barbastelle , skylark , high brown fritillary butterfly , great crested newt , adder and black poplar . Flint axes, arrowheads, and flakes found in the area are attributed to early Bronze Age settlers, and

5047-473: The Malvern Hills and decided that there were enough facilities in the immediate area and that St Ann's Well cafe should be enough provision on the hills, so the application to rebuild was turned down. In 2000, a £1.3 million project to reintroduce grazing animals to the Malvern Hills and restore part of its historic network of water spouts was given significant backing of National Lottery funds. The Malverns Heritage Project aimed to reintroduce grazing animals as

5150-442: The Malvern Hills are amongst the oldest and hardest found in England; the geology is responsible for the quality of Malvern's spring water. The hills consist of Precambrian igneous and metamorphic rock , the oldest of which are about 670 million years old. The rocks are characterised by low porosity and high secondary permeability via fissures. Malvern water is rainwater and snow meltwater that percolates through fissures created by

5253-404: The Malvern Hills since 1986. Paul Nash made paintings of the hills from 'Madams' in Gloucestershire and from the 'Rising Sun' hotel on Cleeve Hill near Cheltenham . Dame Laura Knight painted in a studio near Wynds Point below British Camp. The opening scene in Elgar , a drama documentary made in 1962 by the British director Ken Russell , depicts a young Elgar riding a white pony over

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5356-435: The Malvern Hills the Conservators would be straying from their core duty of keeping the Malvern Hills unenclosed as open spaces for the recreation and enjoyment of the public. Although the conservation officer said any enclosures would be small and temporary there were worries that leisure activities that could be affected and that "the feeling of freedom associated with 'just being' on the Malvern Hills" could be lost. In 2001,

5459-403: The Malvern Hills were officially closed to the public for the first time in history. Walkers were told to avoid the area as part of the effort to prevent the spread of foot and mouth disease . As a result of the closure the economy of the Malvern Hills faced serious damage. In 2002 the Malvern Hills were named the most popular free tourist attraction in the West Midlands in a survey commissioned by

5562-401: The Malvern Hills. Made for BBC Television's long-running Monitor programme, it dramatised the life of the composer Edward Elgar. The film significantly raised the public profile of the composer. The Tank Quarry on North Hill and West of England Quarry on the Worcestershire Beacon were used as locations in the Doctor Who serial The Krotons , starring Patrick Troughton . The serial

5665-412: The Norman Conquest, the rest of the county was still held by the Abbeys of Pershore and Evesham, the Bishop of Worcester and Priory . The first Norman Sheriff Urse d'Abetot , built the castle of Worcester and seized much church land, some of which became part of the Crown's hundreds in Worcestershire. and was in dispute with the Bishop of Worcester over the rights of the sheriff. Bishop Wulfstan

5768-400: The area had been inhabited by the La Tène people around 250 BC. Ancient folklore has it that the British chieftain Caractacus made his last stand against the Romans at the British Camp , a site of extensive Iron Age earthworks on a summit of the Malvern Hills close to where Malvern was to be later established. The story remains disputed, however, as Roman historian Tacitus implies

5871-461: The area is the responsibility of the Malvern Hills Trust . The name Malvern is first attested in a charter of around 1030, as Mælfern , and then in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Malferna . The name derives from the Common Brittonic words that survive in modern Welsh as moel ("bare") and bryn ("hill"); thus it once meant "bare hill". The name perhaps applied originally to the hill now called Worcester Beacon, after which Great Malvern

5974-485: The area of the administrative county grew only where Stourbridge took in the majority of Amblecote Urban District from Staffordshire and the designation of Redditch in 1964 as a New Town . This in turn saw expansion into the area in and around the villages of Ipsley and Matchborough in Warwickshire. The Redditch New Town designation coincided with a considerable programme of social and private house building in Droitwich , Worcester, Bromsgrove, Kidderminster and along

6077-426: The area, including the magnificent views of the Malverns, was a profound inspiration for their music. Howells dedicated his first major work, the Piano Quartet in A minor (1916), to "the hill at Chosen ( Churchdown ) and Ivor Gurney who knew it". The Swedish singer Jenny Lind spent the last years of her life living at Wynd's Point near the British Camp. She is buried in Great Malvern cemetery. The Malvern Hills were

6180-467: The cathedrals of Worcester, Gloucester and Hereford. They are known for their spring water – initially from holy wells , and later the spa town of Great Malvern , which led to the production of the modern bottled drinking water. The Malvern Hills have been designated as a biological and geological Site of Special Scientific Interest , and by Natural England as National Character Area 103 and an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty . Management of

6283-441: The centre of Malvern, connecting it to Worcester and Ledbury . The M5 motorway to the east of Malvern is accessible at junctions 7 and 8. The M50 (also known as the Ross Spur ) to the south can be accessed at junction 1 on the A38 road between Tewkesbury and Malvern. The AONB has four railway stations inside or very close to its boundary: Malvern Link , Great Malvern , Colwall and Ledbury . These railway stations lie on

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6386-416: The country, including the National Express route 321 through eleven counties from Aberdare, South Wales, via Birmingham and other major cities to Bradford, West Yorkshire, and route 444 from Worcester to London (Victoria). English composer Edward Elgar , who was from the area, often walked, cycled, and reportedly flew kites on these hills. He wrote a cantata in 1898 entitled Caractacus , which alludes to

6489-418: The county is even more colourful, changing hands from Worcestershire to Staffordshire and Warwickshire, before returning to Worcestershire at differing times over the centuries. The southern boundary of the county was also complex, with parish boundaries penetrating deep into Gloucestershire and vice versa. Worcestershire County Council came into existence following the Local Government Act 1888 and covered

6592-409: The county of Hereford & Worcester was abolished, and the non-metropolitan county or shire county of Worcestershire regained its historic border with Herefordshire. The recreated County of Worcestershire came into existence on 1 April 1998 as an administrative and ceremonial county, although this excluded the Black Country towns of Dudley, Halesowen, Oldbury and Stourbridge (which remained part of

6695-417: The county's highest point. The southwest contains a small part of the Cotswolds , and in the northwest is part of the Wyre Forest , a national nature reserve . There is some evidence of Roman occupation in Worcestershire; the area later became part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Hwicce , and then Mercia . Worcestershire was constituted as a county around 927, as the Kingdom of England formed. During

6798-437: The county: the Severn and the Avon . The geographical area now known as Worcestershire was first populated at least 700,000 years ago. The area became predominantly agricultural in the Bronze Age , leading to population growth and more evidence of settlement. By the Iron Age , hill forts dominated the landscape. Settlement of these swiftly ended with the Roman occupation of Britain. The Roman period saw establishment of

6901-522: The exploitation, and although a second Act was passed in 1924 its provisions were largely ineffective. Quarrying continued until 1966. The landscape itself was irrevocably changed; but there is some debate whether this has enriched or damaged the ecology of the Hills. Certainly the quarrying has changed the Hills forever, including creating habitats for frogs, toads, newts and other small animals. The new cliffs provide nesting sites for certain birds. The quarries, especially North Quarry and Tank Quarry, have over

7004-577: The final of the LV Cup on three occasions. The village of Broadheath , about 6.2 miles (10 km) northwest of the city of Worcester, is the birthplace of the composer Edward Elgar . It is claimed that the county was the inspiration for the Shire , a region of J. R. R. Tolkien 's fictional Middle-earth , described in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings . Tolkien was thought to have named Bilbo Baggins ' house " Bag End " after his Aunt Jane's Worcestershire farm. Tolkien wrote of Worcestershire, "Any corner of that county (however fair or squalid)

7107-570: The geology, nature and history of the Geopark and the Malvern hills and Malvern in particular, as well as large wall maps of the area. The Abberley and Malvern Hills Geopark was launched in 2004. It falls within the counties of Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, Shropshire and Worcestershire and covers 3,240 km (1,250 square miles). The geological and geomorphological significance of the area has been recognised for many years with 13 Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and 179 Local Geological Sites (LGS) present. The A449 road runs through

7210-418: The hills and surrounding area were part of a royal forest known as Malvern Chase . Riots by commoners and legal challenges from land owners ensued when King Charles I attempted to disafforest the Chase in 1630. Ultimately, only one third was disafforested, and commissioners were appointed to ensure any further encroachments did not leave the common lands as the most meagre in quality. This system lasted until

7313-413: The historic traditional county , except for two designated county boroughs at Dudley and Worcester. Birmingham's continuous expansion has been a major cause of Worcestershire's fluid boundary changes and associated housing issues. The district of Balsall Heath , which had originally constituted the most northerly part of the parish of King's Norton , was the first area of the county to be added to

7416-450: The historic border, so a new Malvern Hills district was constituted which straddled the pre-April 1974 county boundary to the west, south-west and north-west. The remaining parts of the former Hereford and Worcester district of Leominster, returned to Herefordshire. These settlements were historically part of the county as noted above, that now fall under the counties of Warwickshire and West Midlands . The Malvern Hills , which run from

7519-428: The inspiration and setting for the famous 14th-century poem The Visions of Piers Plowman (1362) by William Langland , who was possibly educated at the priory of Great Malvern. The earliest poetical allusion to the Malvern Hills occurs in the poem: " And on a Maye mornynge on Malverne hylles ". The poet W. H. Auden taught for three years at The Downs School , Colwall , in the Malvern Hills. He spent three years at

7622-526: The jurisdiction of the queen mother. In 1642, the Battle of Powick Bridge was the first major skirmish of the English Civil War . The county suffered from being on the Royalist front line, as it was subject to heavy taxation and the pressing of men into the Royalist army, which also reduced its productive capacity. The northern part of the county, which was already a centre of iron production,

7725-717: The liner notes for J.R.R. Tolkien Reads and Sings his The Hobbit & The Fellowship of the Ring , George Sayer wrote that Tolkien would relive the book as they walked and compared parts of the Malvern Hills to the White Mountains of Gondor . The poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning spent her childhood at Hope End , a 500-acre (2.0 km) estate near the Malvern Hills in Ledbury , Herefordshire. Her time at Hope End would inspire her in later life to write Aurora Leigh . In Early British Trackways Alfred Watkins theorised that

7828-526: The main geographical area of Worcestershire and completely surrounded by the nearby counties of Warwickshire, Staffordshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Oxfordshire . The most notable islands were Dudley, Evenlode, Blockley and the area around Shipston-on-Stour. Herefordshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Shropshire had their own exclaves within the main part of Worcestershire at Rochford , Broome , Clent, Tardebigge ( Tutnall and Cobley ) and Halesowen respectively. Tardebigge's history outside

7931-474: The other. Typically, accreting terranes are portions of continental crust which have rifted off another continental mass and been transported surrounded by oceanic crust, or they are old island arcs formed at some distant subduction zones. A tectonostratigraphic terrane is a fault-bounded package of rocks of at least regional extent characterized by a geologic history that differs from that of neighboring terranes. The essential characteristic of these terranes

8034-434: The play, where the protagonist has an apparitional experience of King Penda and the "mother and father of England", is set on the Malvern Hills. A famous historic Virginia Landmark, Malvern Hill was a house built in the 17th century by an English settler, Thomas Cocke, later the site of an American Civil War battle. Cocke named his home after Malvern Hills in England. A list of the hills in their order from north to south

8137-404: The popular legend of his last stand at British Camp. In 1934, during the composer's final illness, he told a friend: "If ever after I'm dead you hear someone whistling this tune [from his Cello Concerto ] on the Malvern Hills, don't be alarmed, it's only me." Composers Herbert Howells and Ivor Gurney used to take long walks together through the nearby Cotswold Hills and the natural beauty of

8240-548: The pressures of tectonic movements about 300 million years ago when advancing sedimentary layers of Silurian shale and limestone were pushed into and under older Precambrian rock. When the fissures are saturated, a water table forms and the water emerges as springs around the fault lines between the strata. Depending on rainfall, the flow can vary from as little as 36 litres (7.9 imp gal; 9.5 US gal) per minute to over 350 litres (77 imp gal; 92 US gal) per minute. The water permeates through

8343-399: The rock which, because of its hardness, leaves little or no mineral traces in the water, while at the same time the very fine cracks act as a filter for other impurities. Rainfall on the Malvern Hills is thought to be sufficient to account for all the water that runs out of the springs, reflected for example in some spring flows six to eight weeks after heavy rainfall, and in reduced flows after

8446-769: The school in the 1930s and wrote some of his finest early love poems there, including: "This Lunar Beauty"; "Lay Your Sleeping Head, My Love" ('Lullaby'); "My Love, Fish in the Unruffled Lakes"; and "Out on the Lawn I Lie in Bed". He also wrote a long poem about the hills and their views, called simply The Malverns . J.R.R. Tolkien found inspiration in the Malvern landscape which he had viewed from his childhood home in Birmingham and his brother Hilary's home near Evesham . He

8549-518: The shape of the hill. The Malvern Hills are formed of some of the most ancient rocks in England, mostly igneous and metamorphic rocks from the late Precambrian , known as the Uriconian , which are around 680 million years old. The Malvern Line or Malvern Lineament is the name applied to a north–south aligned lineament which runs through the Malvern Hills and extends southwards towards Bristol and northwards past Kidderminster . It consists of

8652-786: The south in Washford , and GKN (it has the second largest turnover in the West Midlands) is in Riverside . Mettis Aerospace are in Enfield, north Redditch, and make light metal components ( former High Duty Alloys , which made most of the forged pistons for Britain's aircraft engines in WWII). Phoenix Group (non-public life assurance schemes) is in the north-east of the county near the Warwickshire boundary, at Wythall , and has

8755-467: The south of the county into Herefordshire, are made up mainly of volcanic igneous rocks and metamorphic rocks , some of which date from more than 1,200 million years ago. They are designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). The Worcestershire Beacon , which at 425 metres (1,394 ft) is the highest point in the county, lies in this range. The rest of the county consists of undulating hills and farmland stretching either side of

8858-422: The south, and Herefordshire to the west. The city of Worcester is the largest settlement and the county town . The county is largely rural, and has an area of 1,741 km (672 sq mi) and a population of 592,057. After Worcester (103,872) the largest settlements are Redditch (87,036), Kidderminster (57,400), and Malvern (30,462). It contains six local government districts , which are part of

8961-518: The story of a monk who in punishment for breaking his vow of chastity was compelled to crawl up the hill every day on his hands and knees, and died cursing the hill and all on whom its shadow should fall. Paintings of the Malvern Hills include Henry Harris Lines 's The British Camp and Herefordshire Beacon (1872), now in the Worcester City Museums. David Prentice , founder member of Birmingham 's Ikon Gallery , has been painting

9064-558: The third civil war. There was little enthusiasm or local participation in the mostly Scottish Royalist army, whose defeat was widely welcomed. Nevertheless, Parliamentarian forces ransacked the city of Worcester , causing heavy damage, looting and destruction of property. Around 10,000 mostly Scottish prisoners were sent into forced labour in the New World or fen drainage schemes. The small bands of Scots that fled into Worcestershire's countryside were attacked by local forces and killed. In

9167-594: The total number of people in every ethnic group increased between 2001 and 2011, the White British share of Worcestershire's population decreased from 95.5% to 92.4%, as did the share of White ethnic groups as whole, which went from 97.5% to 95.7%. Worcestershire is still much more ethnically homogeneous than the national average. In 2011, 79.8% of the population of England identified as White British; much lower than Worcestershire's figure of 92.4%. 95.7 0.4 1.2 0.2 100 In Redditch are Halfords , to

9270-575: The villa system in the Cotswolds and Vale of Evesham. Droitwich (Salinae) was probably the most important settlement in the county in this period, due to its product of salt. There is also evidence for Roman settlement and industrial activity around Worcester and King's Norton. The area which became Worcestershire formed the heartland of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the Hwicce . It was absorbed by

9373-557: The village of Colwall , and overlook the River Severn valley to the east, with the Cotswolds beyond. The highest point of the hills is the Worcestershire Beacon at 425 metres (1,394 ft) above sea level (OS Grid reference SO768452). The hills are famous for their natural mineral springs and wells, which were responsible for the development of Great Malvern as a spa in the early 19th century. Malvern water

9476-418: The west, Shropshire to the north-west, Staffordshire only just to the north, West Midlands to the north and north-east, Warwickshire to the east and Gloucestershire to the south. The western border with Herefordshire includes a stretch along the top of the Malvern Hills . At the southern border with Gloucestershire, Worcestershire meets the northern edge of the Cotswolds . Two major rivers flow through

9579-590: The years been the sites of several accidents requiring the Emergency Services. In 1989, the cafe on Worcestershire Beacon burned down. As the Malvern Hills Acts state that no building should be erected on the Conservators' land or on land under their jurisdiction, the Conservators put a bill through Parliament to get the power to build a new one but the House of Lords opposed it. When the cafe

9682-707: Was bottled commercially on a large scale and sold worldwide. There are three passes over the hills, the Wyche cutting, the A438 road north of Raggedstone Hill and the A449 road just north of the Herefordshire Beacon , the site of the British Camp , an Iron Age hillfort at the top of the hill, subsequently extended by a medieval castle . The extensive earthworks remain clearly visible today and determine

9785-472: Was broadcast in four weekly parts from 28 December 1968 to 18 January 1969. The Malvern Hills are the backdrop for Penda's Fen , a 1974 British television play written by David Rudkin and directed by Alan Clarke for the BBC's Play for Today series. It tells the story of Stephen, a pastor's son who has visions of angels, Edward Elgar, and King Penda , the last pagan ruler of England. The final scene of

9888-461: Was burned down, the Conservators had plans to replace the building but were advised that they risked prosecution for rebuilding as the original cafe building was an encroachment on common land. The Malvern Hills Bill was in preparation to modernise some of the clauses in previous acts a clause was inserted to gain authority to rebuild the cafe. Five members of the House of Lords Select Committee visited

9991-450: Was important for military supplies. Parliamentarian raids and Royalist requisitioning both placed a great strain on the county. There were tensions from the participation of prominent Catholic recusants in the military and civilian organisation of the county. Combined with the opposition to requisitioning from both sides, bands of Clubmen formed to keep the war away from their localities. The Battle of Worcester in 1651 effectively ended

10094-583: Was introduced to the area by C. S. Lewis , who had brought him here to meet George Sayer , the Head of English at Malvern College . Sayer had been a student of Lewis, and became his biographer, and together with them Tolkien would walk the Malvern Hills. Recordings of Tolkien reading excerpts from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were made in Malvern in 1952, at the home of George Sayer. The recordings were later issued on long-playing gramophone records . In

10197-583: Was part of a wider campaign by the De Montforts and their allies in the run-up to the Second Barons' War , aimed at undermining Henry III. Worcestershire was the site of the Battle of Evesham in which Simon de Montfort was killed on 4 August 1265. A few years later, in 1275, the Jews that were still living in Worcester were forced to move to Hereford , as they were expelled from all towns under

10300-506: Was soon determined that these exotic crustal slices had in fact originated as "suspect terranes" in regions at some considerable remove, frequently thousands of kilometers, from the orogenic belt where they had eventually ended up. It followed that the present orogenic belt was itself an accretionary collage, composed of numerous terranes derived from around the circum- Pacific region and now sutured together along major faults. These concepts were soon applied to other, older orogenic belts, e.g.

10403-541: Was the last Anglo-Saxon bishop in England, and remained in post until his death in 1095. Under his tenure Worcester Cathedral began major reconstruction, and he opposed political interventions against William and the Normans. He was later made a saint. During Henry III 's disputes and wars with his Barons, in 1263 Worcester 's Jewish residents were attacked by a baronial force led by Robert Earl Ferrers and Henry de Montfort . Most were killed. The massacre in Worcester

10506-426: Was then named; Great Malvern in turn then gave its name to the whole range of hills beside which it lies. The name Malvern Hills is first attested in the fourteenth-century poem Piers Plowman . The Malvern Hills are part of an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, with scenic views over both Herefordshire and Worcestershire. The Hills run north–south for about 8 mi (13 kilometres), in between Great Malvern and

10609-588: Was to build the Priory Estate , a large new council estate on which construction began in 1929. The boundaries of Worcestershire were altered to include all of the proposed new housing estate in Dudley. During the Local Government reorganisation of April 1966, Dudley expanded beyond its historical boundaries and took in the bulk of Sedgley , Brierley Hill and the south of Coseley as well as

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