Worcester

Worcester (ⁱ/ˈwʊstər/ WUUS-tər) is a city and the county town of Worcestershire in the West Midlands of England. Worcester is situated some 17 miles (27 km) southwest of the southern suburbs of Birmingham and 23 miles (37 km) north of Gloucester, and has an approximate population of 100,000 people.

The River Severn flanks the western side of the city centre, overlooked by the 12th-century Worcester Cathedral. The site of the final battle of the Civil War, Worcester was where Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army defeated King Charles II's Cavaliers, cementing the English Interregnum, the eleven-year period during which England and Wales became a republic. Worcester was the home of Royal Worcester Porcelain and, for much of his life, the composer Sir Edward Elgar. It houses the Lea & Perrins factory where the traditional Worcestershire Sauce is made, and is home to one of the UK's fastest-growing universities, the University of Worcester.

History

The trade route past Worcester which later formed part of the Roman Ryknild Street dates to Neolithic times. The position commanded a ford over the River Severn (the river was tidal past Worcester prior to public works projects in the 1840s) and was fortified by the Britons around 400 BC. It would have been on the northern border of the Dobunni and probably subject to the larger communities of the Malvern hillforts. The Roman settlement at the site passes unmentioned by Ptolemy's Geography, the Antonine Itinerary, and the Register of Dignitaries but would have grown up on the road opened between Glevum (Gloucester) and Viroconium (Wroxeter) in the AD 40s and 50s. It may have been the "Vertis" mentioned in the 7th-century Ravenna Cosmography. Using charcoal from the Forest of Dean, the Romans operated pottery kilns and ironworks at the site and may have built a small fort.

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