Alcester
Alcester is a town in southern Warwickshire, England, not far from that county's border with Worcestershire. The town was founded by the Romans in around AD 47 as a walled fort, and they are still commemorated by Roman street names. It is located at the junction of the River Alne and River Arrow. It lies in the Stratford-on-Avon district which is 8 miles to the south-west. Alcester is 7 miles south of Redditch.
Contents
Ancient town
In the early Middle Ages, Alencestre had become an Anglo-Saxon market town in the Kingdom of Mercia. Alcester was also the site of Alcester Abbey, a Benedictine monastery founded in 1138 by Ralph le Boteler.[1] Richard de Tutbury, the last Abbot, resigned his office in 1467[2] and Alcester Abbey was absorbed into the neighbouring Evesham Abbey. By 1515 Alcester Abbey was in ruins as a result of the neglect of various abbots, and later during the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII it was largely demolished. The ruins were granted to the local Greville family, who used much of the stone to rebuild their family seat of Beauchamp Court.
Antiquities
The market place still exists with its seventeenth and eighteenth century houses dominated by the Church of England parish church of Saint Nicholas, which has a tower built in the 1300s. Not far away is Malt Mill lane, the finest street of mediaeval timber-framed buildings in the county. Alcester's 'new' town hall was constructed between 1618 and 1641, with stone quarried from pits near Canmore Hill.[3]. One of the county families who maintained a town-house in Alcester until the turn of the twentieth century was that of Savage, who were armigers. Robert Savage of Dormston Manor, Worcestershire, died here in 1749. He had been a Royal Commissioner on several occasions for the Collection of the Land Taxes. An owner of numerous properties, in 1740 he had leased a messuage [of land], with a tan house and other premises in Alcester to John Bell of Burcott in Shropshire[4]. Savage was buried at nearby Inkberrow on 19 February 1749 where he is given as "Robert Savage, gentleman"[5].
Population
In the 2021 census, the population of the parish was 6,421,[6] with 6,035 in the built-up area.[7]
Sources
- ↑ Genuki: ALCESTER - Extract from National Gazetteer, 1868, Warwickshire.
- ↑ Houses of Benedictine monks: Abbey of Alcester | British History Online.
- ↑ Cave, Lyndon F., Warwickshire Villages, Robert Hale, London, 1976 pps: 88, 94. ISBN: 0-7091-5509-3
- ↑ Worcester County Record Office 899:749/87782/61/13.
- ↑ Old Parish Registers for Inkberrow
- ↑ Alcester Parish in West Midlands. City Population.
- ↑ Alcester in Warwickshire (West Midlands) Built-up Area. City Population.
