Elmley Castle 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 ...

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 ...

, in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, United Kingdom. It is located on the north side of

Bredon Hill Bredon Hill is a hill in Worcestershire, England, south-west of Evesham in the Vale of Evesham. The summit of the hill is in the parish of Kemerton, and it extends over parts of eight other parishes (listed below). The hill is geologically par ...

3 miles south east of

Pershore Pershore is a market town in the Wychavon district in Worcestershire, England, on the banks of the River Avon. The town is part of the West Worcestershire parliamentary constituency. At the 2011 census, the population was 7,125. The town is ...

in the local government district of

Wychavon Wychavon is a local government district in Worcestershire, England, with a population size of 132,500 according to the 2021 census. Its council is based in the town of Pershore, and the other towns in the district are Droitwich Spa and Evesh ...

Amenities and history

It had a population of 497 in 2001, and retains public amenities such as a bus route,

public house A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and wa ...

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional ser ...

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...

, local shop selling local produce, and

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * C ...

. The remaining public house is now called "The Queen Elizabeth Inn", after

Queen Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen". El ...

, who is supposed to have stopped there. According to local legend, Elizabeth I was presented with a hat on her arrival in the village on the road from the nearby town of

. The slope upwards out of the village at that point is still known as 'Besscaps'. The remains of a stone cross are still present in the centre of the village. Its age is unknown, and a significant portion remains underground. The church of St. Mary dates from the end of the 11th century, the

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ov ...

shows

herringbone pattern The herringbone pattern is an arrangement of rectangles used for floor tilings and road pavement, so named for a fancied resemblance to the bones of a fish such as a herring. The blocks can be rectangles or parallelograms. The block edge length ...

stonework in the external walls, the font has a 15th-century octagonal bowl on a 13th-century square base decorated with stonecarved serpents and dragons and the church was much added to in succeeding centuries. It contains grand

monuments A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, hist ...

to Thomas, 1st Earl of Coventry and 17th century

effigies An effigy is an often life-size sculptural representation of a specific person, or a prototypical figure. The term is mostly used for the makeshift dummies used for symbolic punishment in political protests and for the figures burned in certai ...

of members of the Savage family. The decline in local Christian worshippers has led to a reduced service schedule at the church.

Castle

The ruins of an important

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

and

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

castle, from which the village derives its name, are located in the deer park, just over half a mile south on

. The castle is supposed to have been built by Robert d'Abitot le Despenser in the years following the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Con ...

. After his death (post 1098) it descended to his brother, Urse the sheriff, and on his death c. 1108, it then fell to his son and heir, Roger d'Abitot, who was unfortunately banished c. 1114, and it was then bestowed upon his sister Emmeline d'Abitots' husband, Walter Beauchamp. It remained in the powerful

Beauchamp family Beauchamp may refer to: People Surname * Alphonse de Beauchamp, French historian * Anne Beauchamp, 15th Countess of Warwick (d. 1449) * Antony Beauchamp (1918–1957), British photographer * Beauchamp, stage name sometimes used by French ...

as their chief seat until William de Beauchamp inherited the earldom and castle of Warwick from his maternal uncle, William Maudit, 8th Earl of Warwick, in 1268. Thereafter, Elmley Castle remained a secondary property of the Earls of Warwick until it was surrendered to the Crown in 1487. In 1528 the castle seems to have been still habitable, for Walter Walshe was then appointed constable and keeper, and ten years later Urian Brereton succeeded to the office. In 1544, however, prior to the grant to Christopher Savage (d.1545), who had been an Esquire of the Body of King Henry VIII, a survey was made of the manor and castle of Elmley, and it was found that the castle, strongly situated upon a hill surrounded by a ditch and wall, was completely uncovered and in decay. An Elizabethan stone mansion succeeded the castle, on flatter ground, built for William Savage of Elmley Castle (1554-1616). Queen Elizabeth stayed on 20 August 1575 after visiting Worcester. This building was entirely remodelled in 1702.

Notes

References

* Page, W. ed. (1913). ''Victoria County History: A History of the County of Worcester'', Vol. III, pp. 338–46. * Leland, John (Hearne, T. ed.). (1745). ''The Itinerary of John Leland the Antiquary''.

External links

Parish Website

Victoria County History text online

2001 census results

Village Community Website
{{authority control Villages in Worcestershire