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'Worcestershire' (pronounced ; abbreviated 'Worcs') is a county located in the West Midlands region of central England. From 1974 to 1998 it was administered as part of Hereford and Worcester.
The county borders Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, West Midlands, Warwickshire, and Gloucestershire. To the west, the county is bordered by the Malvern Hills, by which is located the spa town of Malvern. The western side of the hills is in the county of Herefordshire. The southern part of the county is bordered by Gloucestershire and the northern edge of the Cotswolds, and to the east is Warwickshire. The two major rivers flowing through the county are the Severn and the Avon.
Other than the city of Worcester, there are several other small to medium sized towns such as Kidderminster, Bromsgrove, Malvern, Pershore, Evesham and Redditch. In the southern part of the county, the area is still largely rural.
There are many accents and dialects in Worcestershire. The counties' northern commuter towns such as Redditch and Kidderminster have adopted the Birmingham accent, whereas the rest of the county has retained the distinctive West Country accent.

Contents

History

Local government

Physical geography

Culture, media and sport

Economy

Industry and agriculture

Education

GCSE results by district council (%)

Towns and villages

Places of interest

Local groups

See also

External links

Footnotes

References

History

''Main article: History of Worcestershire.''
Worcestershire was the site of the Battle of Evesham in which Simon de Montfort was killed (4th August, 1265), and later, in the English Civil War, the Battle of Worcester (1651).
In the nineteenth century, Worcester was a centre for the manufacture of gloves; the town of Kidderminster was a centre for carpet manufacture, and Redditch specialised in the manufacture of needles, springs and hooks. Droitwich Spa, being situated on large deposits of salt, was a centre of salt production from Roman times, 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 is also home to the world's oldest continually published newspaper, the ''Berrow's Journal'' (established 1690). Malvern was one of the centres of the rise in water-cure establishments in this country, as Malvern water was believed to contain "nothing at all", i.e. to be very pure.
^[1]

Local government

Worcestershire's boundaries have been fluid for over a hundred years since the abolition of the form of administration known as the Hundreds, though the continual expansion of Birmingham and the Black Country considerably altered the map. Worcestershire County Council came into existence in 1889 and covered the whole of the traditional county, except two county boroughs - Dudley and Worcester. The county also had many exclaves, completely surrounded by the adjoining counties of Warwickshire, Staffordshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Oxfordshire. The most noticeable were Dudley and the area around Shipston-on-Stour. In return, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Shropshire had islands within Worcestershire. These were found at Clent, Tardebigge and Halesowen/Oldbury respectively, though the latter originally was outside Worcestershire for nine-hundred years. The southern boundary of the county was especially confusing, with parish boundaries penetrating deep into Gloucestershire and vice-versa.
Dudley's historical status within the Worcester Diocese and through its aristocracy links ensured to a certain extent that the island was self-governing. Worcester was also self-governing and was known as The City and County of Worcester. During the Local Government reorganisation of 1966, Dudley expanded beyond its historical boundaries and took in Sedgley, Brierley Hill, Coseley and parts of Amblecote, but lost its Worcestershire status and became associated with Staffordshire.

Other areas of Worcestershire including Yardley, Northfield and Kings Heath became part of the county borough of Birmingham (and therefore were considered part of the geographical county of Warwickshire), the surrounding islands to their respective counties, Oldbury to Warley County Borough and St. John's, Warndon, Claines and St. Peter's Parishes to Worcester. The new county borough of Warley was associated with Worcestershire. In return, Worcestershire's expansion was limited to Stourbridge, taking in the majority of Amblecote Urban District, and the designation of Redditch in 1964 as a New town which saw expansion into Matchborough in Warwickshire.
From 1974 to 1998, the middle and southern part of county was combined with Herefordshire and Worcester County Borough to form 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 West Midlands Metropolitan county. The West Midlands County Council was in existence for only a short period before abolition in 1986. In the 1990s UK local government reform, the decision was taken to abolish Hereford and Worcester, with the new non-metropolitan county of Worcestershire having the historic border with Herefordshire, but still excluding areas in the north in West Midlands.
The post-1974 districts of Redditch, Worcester, Wychavon and Wyre Forest were retained with little or no change. However the Leominster and Malvern Hills districts straddled the historic border: a new Malvern Hills district was constituted covering the Worcestershire part of these.
See also: List of Worcestershire boundary changes

Physical geography

Worcestershire is a fairly rural county. The Malvern Hills, which run from the south of the county into Herefordshire, are made up mainly of volcanic igneous and metamorphic rock, some of which date from before 1200 million years ago. For more on the geology of the Malvern Hills, see the External links.

Culture, media and sport

The county is home to the Worcestershire County Cricket Club, traditionally first stop on for the touring national side's schedule in England. The Club's players have included Tom Graveney, Ian Botham, Glenn McGrath, Graeme Hick, Kapil Dev, Vikram Solanki, Don Kenyon and Basil D'Oliveira. Worcester Rugby Football Club, the Worcester Warriors, whose ground is at Sixways, Worcester, were promoted to the Guinness Premiership in 2004.
The village of Broadheath, about 10 km North-West of the city of Worcester, is the birthplace of the composer Edward Elgar.
Malvern is the home of the Malvern Fringe Festival, one of the oldest festivals of its kind in the world ^[2]
There are three radio stations which broadcast to the county as well as Herefordshire, these are: Wyvern FM, Classic Hits and BBC Hereford & Worcester. There is also one commercial radio station broadcasting primarily to Kidderminster, Stourport-on-Severn & Bewdley, known as The Wyre. Recently a Community radio station has been licensed within Worcestershire, known as Youth Community Radio in Worcester. In addition, there are local and regional radio stations broadcasting into Worcestershire from surrounding areas such as Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Gloucestershire and Warwickshire.
Worcestershire is mentioned in Shrek 3 as the name of the high school Puss, Donkey and Shrek visit to find Prince Arthur. Donkey misspronounces it, and then after Shrek explains the correct pronunciation, Donkey makes a joke out of it by comparing it to Worcestershire sauce. Though it escaped some, Prince Arthur Tudor has a "Prince Arthur's Chantry" dedicated to him in Worcester Cathedral.

Economy

This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of Worcestershire at current basic prices published (pp.240-253) by ''Office for National Statistics'' with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.

Year	Regional Gross Value Added[3]	Agriculture[4]	Industry[5]	Services[6]
1995	'5,047'	225	1,623	3,200
2000	'6,679'	159	2,002	4,518
2003	'7,514'	182	1,952	5,380

Industry and agriculture

A large area of the county used to be devoted to fruit-growing and the cultivation of hops; this has decreased considerably since World War II, though in the southern area of the county, around the Vale of Evesham, there are still sufficient orchards that the British Automobile Association signposts a route (the "Blossom Trail") where the orchards can be seen in spring. Worcester City's coat of arms includes a depiction of three black pears, representing a now rare local fruit variety, the Worcester Black Pear. The county's coat of arms follows this theme, having a pear tree with black pears. The apple variety known as Worcester Pearmain originates from Worcestershire, and the Pershore plum comes from the small Worcestershire town of that name, and is widely grown in that area.
Worcestershire is also famous for a number of its non-agricultural products. The city of Worcester and the surrounding county are best known for Worcestershire sauce and for its porcelain works. Worcestershire sauce (also known as ''Worcester sauce'') is a savoury sauce made with vinegar, anchovies, molasses, tamarinds, onions and spices, used in flavouring various foods and the Bloody Mary drink which is drunk worldwide. The town of Malvern is the home of the Morgan traditional sports car). The painting, ''A Worcestershire Cottage'' by Arthur Claude Strachan is also of general renown.

Education

Worcestershire has a comprehensive school system with sixteen independent schools including the The Royal Grammar School Worcester, The King's School, Worcester and Malvern College. Schools in Redditch, Kidderminster and two in Bromsgrove use the upper/middle school tertiary system, with all upper schools having a sixth form, with sixth form provision in the county being quite generous. Just over 6300 pupils take GCSEs in the county each year. In England, the average proportion of pupils in 2006 gaining five good GCSEs (A-C) including English and Maths is 45.8%: for Worcestershire it is 43.1, which is relatively low for a rural county. A few schools in Kidderminster and Redditch produce very low results. At GCSE, the best school is the Haybridge High School in Hagley, closely followed by the Prince Henry's High School in Evesham and St Augustine's Catholic High School in Redditch. The worst performing school is the Elgar Technology College in Worcester. At A level, the county is slightly under the England average, but there are some reasonably performing schools, with the best being Hagley Catholic High School.

GCSE results by district council (%)

★ Malvern Hills 51.7

★ Wychavon 50.5

★ Bromsgrove 48.9

★ Worcester 39.6

★ Redditch 38.1

★ Wyre Forest 34.9

Towns and villages

The county town and only city is Worcester. The other major settlements, Kidderminster, Bromsgrove and Redditch are satellite towns of Birmingham. There are also several market towns: Malvern, Bewdley, Evesham, Droitwich Spa, Pershore, and Tenbury Wells.
''For a full list of settlements, see list of places in Worcestershire.''

Places of interest

★ Avoncroft Museum of Historic Buildings

★ Walton Hill and the Clent Hills

★ Malvern Hills - Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty

★ Severn Valley Railway

★ Wadborough

★ Worcester Cathedral

★ Great Malvern Priory

★ River Teme and valley

★ Tenbury Wells with its unique Pump Rooms.

★ River Severn at Worcester, River Avon at Pershore or Evesham

★ Witley Court at Great Witley. A burnt-out shell of a large English stately home, famous for its gigantic fountain, now restored to working order. Currently run by English Heritage.

★ West Midlands Safari Park

★ Hanbury Hall

★ Forge Mill Needle Museum at Redditch, the only remaining working needle mill in the world.

Local groups

★ Worcestershire Wildlife Trust

★ 29th Regiment of Foot

★ West Midland Bird Club

See also

★ Worcestershire sauce

★ Worcester Radio Amateurs Association

External links

★ Worcestershire County Council main site

★ History of the Worcestershire Regiment

★ Worcestershire County Cricket Club

★ Geology of the Malvern Hills

Footnotes

1. Fine Waters .
2. Wikipedia Fringe theatre.
3. Components may not sum to totals due to rounding
4. includes hunting and forestry
5. includes energy and construction
6. includes financial intermediation services indirectly measured

References

★ "Spa Towns: Malvern" October 27, retrieved June 24, 2006