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EVESHAM
WRITTEN AND
ILLUSTRATED BY
EDMUND H. NEW
LONDON: J.M. DENT & CO.
29 BEDFORD STREET
NEW YORK: E.P. DUTTON CO.
MDCCCCIV
[Illustration: Bridge St. Evesham]
DEDICATED
TO THE MEMORY OF
H.N.
1820-1893
D.N.
1834-1901
NOTE
For the historical matter contained in the following pages the writer
is indebted mainly to George May's admirable history of the town
issued in 1845, a book which, since its publication, has been the
acknowledged authority on local history.
To Mr. Oswald Knapp his thanks are especially due not only for
permission to make use of the series of articles, founded on the
monastic chronicles, which appeared some years ago in the Evesham
Journal, most of them under the title of "Evesham Episodes," but also
for much generous help and criticism.
CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION
II. EVESHAM AND THE VALE
III. THE ABBEY
1. THE FOUNDING OF THE ABBEY
2. THE ABBEY AFTER THE CONQUEST.
3. THE DISSOLUTION.
IV. THE REMAINS OF THE ABBEY
V. THE PARISH CHURCHES
VI. THE TOWN--INCLUDING BENGEWORTH AND GREEN HILL
VII. THE BATTLE OF EVESHAM
VIII. CAVALIERS AND ROUNDHEADS
IX. THE RIVER
X. THE NEIGHBOURHOOD
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Bridge Street
Evesham and Bredon Hill, from the Parks
The Bell Tower
The Gatehouse and Almonry
Abbot Reginald's Gateway
In the Market Place
High Street
The Bell Tower, from Bengeworth
St. Egwin's, Honeybourne
Evesham
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Yonder lies our ... village--Art and Grace are less and less:
Science grows and Beauty dwindles--roofs of slated hideousness!
--LOCKSLEY HALL, SIXTY YEARS AFTER
Those who love with a deep reverence the work of their forefathers,
whether because of the character and beauty of their handiwork, or
from the historical associations which are indissolubly connected with
it, cannot but regard with pain and abhorrence any cause which tends
towards the demolition or destruction of the monuments of the past. To
these it is a significant and distressing fact that hardly any modern
English buildings or streets possess the qualities which give the
value and charm to the old cities, towns, and villages of which we are
the grateful inheritors. If any reader is inclined to doubt the truth
of this statement, or to consider the sentiment expressed extravagant
or groundless, let him consider the difference between the old towns
and the new.
Evesham provides a typical and sufficiently striking instance of the
contrasted methods and results. Here there is hardly an old house
which has not a local and individual character. Many of them may be
plain, severely plain, some possibly ugly; but in each can be read by
all who will, a distinct and separate thought, or series of thoughts,
connecting the dwelling with its builders and owners, and with the
soil out of which it has sprung.
As the varying undulations of the face of the country tell a plain
tale to the geologist, so the shape and materials of human habitations
tell their story to the student of architecture and the history of
man.
The poet Wordsworth pointed out that one of the great charms of the
Lake country lay in the way in which the dwellings sprang out of the
hill side, as if a natural growth born of the requirements of the
peasant or farmer and the materials provided by nature. Throughout
England this was once the case; no two houses were precisely alike
because no two people had precisely the same ideas, wishes and
requirements; and the material was dictated by the stone or timber
provided by the district. Every building was in old times the
combined expression of the individual man and the genius loci.
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New, Edmund H. - Evesham