Eldersfield is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

in the

Malvern Hills district Malvern Hills is a local government district in Worcestershire, England. Its council is based in the town of Malvern, and its area covers most of the western half of the county, including the outlying towns of Tenbury Wells and Upton-upon-Sev ...

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see H ...

, England. It stands exactly ten miles east of

Ledbury Ledbury is a market town and civil parish in the county of Herefordshire, England, lying east of Hereford, and west of the Malvern Hills. It has a significant number of timber-framed structures, in particular along Church Lane and High Stree ...

and ten miles north of

Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east o ...

; this fact can be found on a milestone on the side of the B4211 road that runs through Corse Lawn.

History

Gadbury Camp

The

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly ...

fort of Gadbury Camp can be found in the parish, to the east of the village, on a hill overlooking the river valley of the Leadon and Severn. It was surrounded by a single massive rampart, making it a rare " univallate" construction. The camp area is 10 acres, is 100m wide at its widest point and has 400m of ramparts. It was settled during the fourth century BC to first centuries AD, and would have been a place where subsistence and craft goods were redistributed. Finds at the site include an Iron Age statue and Roman coins. It is now a

listed Listed may refer to: * Listed, Bornholm, a fishing village on the Danish island of Bornholm * Listed (MMM program), a television show on MuchMoreMusic * Endangered species in biology * Listed building, in architecture, designation of a historicall ...

monument.

Parish Church

The parish church is dedicated to St. John the Baptist and is in the Diocese of Worcester. The parish registers survive from 1718, and there are bishops' transcripts for the earlier registers starting in 1561. In 1619, the vicar of Eldersfield Gerard Prior preached against the use of Sunday's for leisure and games, under the

Declaration of Sports The ''Declaration of Sports'' (also known as the ''Book of Sports'') was a declaration of James I of England issued just for Lancashire in 1617, nationally in 1618, and reissued by Charles I of England, Charles I in 1633. It listed the sports and r ...

, asking that "the King's heart might be turned from profanenes, vanity and popery". He was suspended, but later reinstated.'Parishes: Eldersfield', in A History of the County of Worcester: Volume 4, ed. William Page and J W Willis-Bund (London, 1924), pp. 76-83. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/worcs/vol4/pp76-83 ccessed 20 December 2020 The Savage family were the local worthies and numerous of their 17th-century tombs in the church and graves in the churchyard were recorded by Treadway Russell Nash c1780, including Christopher Savage gent. (1600-1681).''Collections for the History of Worcestershire, 2 vols. by Treadway Russell Nash, 1781/2.

Enclosure of Commons

Acts for enclosing lands were passed in 1836, 1840 and 1861.

References

External links

Eldersfield entry in A History of the County of Worcester: volume 4Eldersfield ChurchEldersfield MarshMarsh Court
in

John Noake John Noake (1816–1894) was an English journalist and antiquary, known for his writings on Worcestershire. Life The son of Thomas and Ann Noake, he was born at Sherborne, Dorset on 29 November 1816. He came to Worcester in 1838 to work on ''B ...

's ''Guide to Worcestershire'' (1868)
Eldersfield 1891 Census Results
{{authority control Villages in Worcestershire Civil parishes in Worcestershire