Guarlford 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-Sever ...

in the county of

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 is situated between the settlements of

Barnards Green Barnards Green is one of the main population areas of Malvern, Worcestershire, England, situated approximately east and downhill from Great Malvern, the town's traditional centre. Governance The southern part of Barnards Green constitutes the m ...

and Rhydd approximately three kilometres (two miles) east of

Great Malvern Great Malvern is an area of the spa town of Malvern, Worcestershire, England. It lies at the foot of the Malvern Hills, a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, on the eastern flanks of the Worcestershire Beacon and North Hill, and i ...

, the town centre of

Malvern Malvern or Malverne may refer to: Places Australia * Malvern, South Australia, a suburb of Adelaide * Malvern, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne * City of Malvern, a former local government area near Melbourne * Electoral district of Malvern, an e ...

. The village is compact, and has a parish church, St Mary's; the Church of England parish includes

Madresfield Madresfield is a village and civil parish in the administrative district of Malvern Hills in the county of Worcestershire, England. It is located about two miles east of Malvern town centre at the foot of the Malvern Hills and is less than two ...

village. Guarlford is in the administrative area of

Malvern Hills District Council Malvern or Malverne may refer to: Places Australia * Malvern, South Australia, a suburb of Adelaide * Malvern, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne * City of Malvern, a former local government area near Melbourne * Electoral district of Malvern, an e ...

and is part of the informal region known as ''The Malverns''.

History

Settlements in Guarlford have existed for around 4,000 years.Guarlford History Group (2005) ''The Guarlford Story'', p.2. Guarlford History Group and have been known as Garford ( Lay Subsidy Rolls 1275), Gerleford (Lay Subsidy Rolls 1333), Garleford (

Valor Ecclesiasticus The ''Valor Ecclesiasticus'' (Latin: "church valuation") was a survey of the finances of the church in England, Wales and English controlled parts of Ireland made in 1535 on the orders of Henry VIII. It was colloquially called the Kings books, a s ...

1535), Galvert (Map of Worcestershire 1820), and Galfords (Ordnance Survey 1830). Guarlford is one of the earliest inhabited places in the Malvern area and shows evidence of

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...

activity with crop marks dating from a period that extends from 2350 BC to 409 AD. The

Hwicce Hwicce () was a tribal kingdom in Anglo-Saxon England. According to the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'', the kingdom was established in 577, after the Battle of Deorham. After 628, the kingdom became a client or sub-kingdom of Mercia as a result of th ...

, an Anglo-Saxon tribe cleared land which may be the site of the existing Guarlford Court. The first parish council was established in December 1894 according to a new Local Government act, and covered much of eastern Malvern including parts of Great Malvern, Pickersleigh, Poolbrook,

, Hall Green, and Sherrards Green. In 1934 following a review, the boundaries were changed, and those areas came under the control of the Malvern council. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

a radio listening post was set up in Rectory Lane by the

Telecommunications Research Establishment The Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) was the main United Kingdom research and development organization for radio navigation, radar, infra-red detection for heat seeking missiles, and related work for the Royal Air Force (RAF) ...

(TRE) to monitor enemy communications, which was instrumental in locating the German

V-2 rocket The V-2 (german: Vergeltungswaffe 2, lit=Retaliation Weapon 2), with the technical name ''Aggregat 4'' (A-4), was the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was develop ...

base in

Peenemünde Peenemünde (, en, " Peene iverMouth") is a municipality on the Baltic Sea island of Usedom in the Vorpommern-Greifswald district in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is part of the ''Amt'' (collective municipality) of Usedom-Nord. The commu ...

that was subsequently bombed by the RAF in

Operation Crossbow ''Crossbow'' was the code name in World War II for Anglo-American operations against the German long range reprisal weapons (V-weapons) programme. The main V-weapons were the V-1 flying bomb and V-2 rocket – these were launched against Brita ...

. Guarlford Parish Walks

References

External links

Parish of Guarlford Home Page
{{authority control Villages in Worcestershire Civil parishes in Worcestershire Malvern, Worcestershire