Kempsey, Worcestershire
Kempsey | ||
---|---|---|
Shire county | ||
Region | ||
Country | England | |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom | |
Post town | Worcester | |
Postcode district | WR5 | |
Police | West Mercia | |
Fire | Hereford and Worcester | |
Ambulance | West Midlands | |
UK Parliament |
| |
Kempsey is a village and
The local
Overview
Kempsey is a fairly large village and is home to The Lawns Nursing Home. Kempsey Playing fields and park are situated at the top of plovers rise and the Kempsey common is situated on the other side of the M5 past bestmans lane. The community centre is on the main road.
Kempsey Primary School is the village primary school down elldson lane near the old post office on post office lane and Painters Cottage Nursery. The rocky is a staple of Kempsey located next to St Marys Church on Church St. North-west of the village is the river severn, which runs alongside the village.
Neighbouring settlements
The nearest town to Kempsey is
Etymology
Kempsey is named after a
History
Pre-Roman Kempsey
According to 'Kempsey Collection' page 9, a piece of iron dated 1500-800 BC was dug up in the Court Meadow area, and is now in the Foregate Museum, Worcester. At that time the River Severn was tidal at Kempsey, and there was extensive marshland and forest in the Severn valley.
An Iron Age promontory fort can be found by the Severn at Kempsey.[2]
Roman Kempsey
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8a/Roman_milestone_found_in_Kempsey.jpg/220px-Roman_milestone_found_in_Kempsey.jpg)
A Roman milestone dedicated to the Emperor Constantine the Great (AD 307 – 337) was found in about 1818 when ground was being levelled for a vegetable garden for Court House, opposite the west gate of the churchyard. According to O'Neil,[3] this was probably not its original position as the nearest Roman road was about one mile (2 km) away. It could have previously been used as masonry for the Bishop's Palace due to the lack of suitable building stone in Kempsey. The Victoria County History entry describes this as "an inscription found some years before 1818, lying in two pieces with other stones 4 feet (1.2 m) deep in the west wall of the kitchen garden of the parsonage farm, north-west of the church. Many of the other stones were cemented together and formed some kind of ancient foundation; whether the inscription was one of these, is not recorded. It is itself a flat slab of freestone, 33 inches (840 mm) high by 20 inches (510 mm) wide, and is now in the Worcester Museum. It reads as follows:[4]
Val(erio) Constantine P(io) fe(lici) invicto Aug(usto)
'Emperor Valerius Constantinus, pious, fortunate, unconquerable, Augustus.'
"Probably the commencement of the inscription is lost; it may have begun IMP. CAES FL. Imp(eratori) Cs(ari) Fl(avio). Flavius Valerius Constantinus was Constantine the Great, and this stone was presumably set up in his reign (A.D. 308-337). It appears to be a milestone, or rather a road-stone, of the type common in the fourth century, in which the mileage was often omitted - though here it might have been broken off. But it might conceivably be no more than an honorary slab."
The stone is from the
Roman Villas
According to Dr. J.K. St. Joseph, writing in The Journal of Roman Studies, in a section on
Roman roads through and near Kempsey
There are three possible
The second runs along the side of the present M5 motorway north by Holdings Lane to Taylor's Lane, where it enters St Peter the Great, Worcester.
The third, Green Street, connects Kempsey Common with the centre of the village, crossing the second Roman road mentioned above at Palmer's Cross.
Roman finds from archeological digs
Pottery, brooches and a coin from the time of the
Celtic tribe
The Celtic tribe that lived around Kempsey in Roman times were the Dobunni.
Dark Ages
Kempsey was part of the
.The King of Mercia and Kempsey Monastery
An archaeological dig[8][9] in 2011 at the top of the bank between the church and the river excavated 42 skeletons and left more in place, and carbon 14 dating of four skeletons gave a range between the 9th and the 13th centuries A.D. The field team found skeletons from a cross-section of the local population including males, females and children. According to a speech by Tom Vaughn of the archaeology society in May 2012, there were skeletons with an age range of approximately 12 to 70 years old, and there were so many skeletons that in one place they were buried seven deep. In those days the Bishop's palace and Anglo-Saxon minster sent priests out to local parishes preaching and converting, because the country had reverted to paganism after the Romans left. The dead were brought from a wide area to Kempsey for burial, because the only Christian consecrated grounds in the area were at Kempsey and at Worcester Cathedral. As other local parishes developed there was less need for this, and Kempsey church's graveyard therefore contracted to its present size.
Danish Raiders
To commemorate the departure of the Danes Bishop Aelhun built an oratory dedicated to St. Andrew. Then the Danes raided again, and the monastery was destroyed.[1]
In 799 AD the population was about 150.
The Domesday Book
The Domesday Book says of Kempsey:
In the
Medieval Times
Royal Visits
King Henry II of England (visited 1186)
King Henry III of England (visited in 1265). On 2 August 1265 Henry III was brought as a prisoner to Kempsey by Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester and leader of the English barons. Bishop Walter de Cantelupe (who the pub known as "Walls" is named after) said Mass for him in Kempsey church the next morning, before they set off to the Battle of Evesham, where de Montfort was killed.
King
The Black Death
The population of Kempsey fell from 600 in 1299 to only 86 in 1327.
Beheading
In 1303, the Reeve (the Lord's official on the manor) of Kempsey beheaded John de Draycote, a clerk, on the highway between Kempsey and Draycote, by order of the bishops bailiff. His head was placed before the Bishop's Palace gates, causing a riot, which was put down.[11]
Alexander Neckham
Civil War
The
Kempsey was raided on 2 July 1646, in an attempt to capture a Colonel Betsworth in his quarters. He was forewarned and eluded capture. According to Rev. Purton, "During the siege of Worcester in 1646, a squadron of 400 dragoons, under Colonel Betsworth, was quartered at Kempsey and on 2 July an attempt was made by the garrison to seize him there, which was unsuccessful." John Noake speaks of a tradition then current in the parish that Cromwell "personally superintended the battering down of the old church, and flattened the nose of every statue then and there lying."[14] There are bullet marks of the south side of the Church tower.
Victorian era
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bc/Lines_family_sketchbook_-_Disc1_029_-_Kempsey_on_Severn.jpg/220px-Lines_family_sketchbook_-_Disc1_029_-_Kempsey_on_Severn.jpg)
Wrecking of the Revolutionary Elm
"In June on Whitsunday afternoon 1897 "The Revolutionary Elm" was wrecked by a sudden storm. It was probably the last of the trees planted to celebrate the events of 1688." Note: this was the
Civil parish
Kempsey civil parish includes the settlements of Baynhall, Broomhall, Clerkenleap, Green Street, Kerswell Green, Napleton and Stonehall.[15]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/89/Leader_Benjamin_Williams_Severn_Side_Sabrina-s_Stream_at_Kempsey_on_the_River_Severn.jpg/220px-Leader_Benjamin_Williams_Severn_Side_Sabrina-s_Stream_at_Kempsey_on_the_River_Severn.jpg)
Notable people
In 1918 Lieutenant Robert Vaughan Gorle of Napleton (an area of Kempsey parish) won the Victoria Cross on 1 October.[citation needed]
The composer Sir Edward Elgar (1857–1934), lived in Kempsey from April 1923 to October 1927.
Sir Richard Temple, 1st Baronet and his son, Richard Carnac Temple, both owned "The Nash", an estate near to Kempsey. The latter sold it in 1926 because of ill-health and financial difficulties.[17][18]
Barbara Hamilton, 14th Baroness Dudley lived in Kempsey until her death in 2002.[19]
References
- ^ ISBN 0-9509914-0-6Re-printed with additions 1990.
- ^ Pevsner & Brookes 2007, p. 12
- ^ O'Neil, Helen E. 1956 "Court House Excavations, Kempsey, Worcestershire", in Transactions of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society pp. 33–44
- ^ O'Neil, Helen E. 1956 'Court House Excavations, Kempsey, Worcestershire', in 'Transactions of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society' pp. 33–44
- ^ O'Neil, Helen E. 1956 'Court House Excavations, Kempsey, Worcestershire', in Transactions of the Worcestershire Archaeological Society pp. 33 - 44
- ^ St. Joseph, J. K. (1953). Air Reconnaissance of Southern Britain. Journal of Roman Studies, 43 (1953) 81-97.
- ^ "Parishes: Kempsey | British History Online".
- ISSN 1468-1862
- ^ Worcestershire Archaeology Research Report No.7: Archaeological investigations on the Kempsey Flood Alleviation Scheme https://www.explorethepast.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/swr24628.pdf
- ^ "Domesday Book of William the Conqueror".
- ^ Kempsey Collection p.14
- ^ Fraser, Maxwell 'Companion to Worcestershire' p.11
- ^ Kempsey Collection
- ^ Historical Notes Relating to the Parish of Kempsey by the Rev. R. C. Purton M.A., Read at the Guildhall Worcester 11 December 1900
- ^ "Home - Kempsey Parish Council". www.kempseyhub.co.uk. Retrieved 11 March 2024.
- ^ Braine, Peter The Railway Moon pmb publishing, Taunton 2010 p30-33
- required.)
- ISBN 978-0-85745-942-8.
- ^ "Baroness Dudley Obituary". The Daily Telegraph. 29 May 2002. p. 24. Retrieved 28 August 2023.
Sources
- OL 10319229M
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)