Mamble is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of Parish (administrative division), administrative parish used for Local government in England, local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below district ...

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-Se ...

in the county of Worcestershire, England. It is located on the

A456 Known as the Hagley Road in Birmingham, the A456 is a main road in England running between Central Birmingham and Woofferton, Shropshire, south of Ludlow. Some sections of the route, for example Edgbaston near Bearwood, are also the route of ...

between

Bewdley Bewdley ( pronunciation) is a town and civil parish in the Wyre Forest District in Worcestershire, England on the banks of the River Severn. It is in the Severn Valley west of Kidderminster and southwest of Birmingham. It lies on the River S ...

and

Tenbury Wells Tenbury Wells (locally Tenbury) is a market town and civil parish in the northwestern extremity of the Malvern Hills District of Worcestershire, England. Its northern border adjoins Shropshire, and at the 2011 census it had a population of 3,777. ...

. Notable buildings include the 13th century

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...

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 * Ch ...

and the nearby 17th century ''Sun & Slipper Inn''.

History

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...

remains have been found in the area at Sodington Hall, and at the time of the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

the settlement was known as ''Mamele''. In subsequent years Mamble parish was in the lower division of

Doddingtree The Hundred of Doddingtree was granted to Ralph Todeni, or ''Ralph de Toni'', a relative of the Duke of Normandy, in 1066 by William the Conqueror as a reward for his services as Standard bearer during the Norman Conquest. It consisted mainly of ...

Hundred. The parish church of St John Baptist dates from about 1200 and has a wooden bell turret. The brick-built side chapel of the Blount family, formerly from Sodington Hall, was added in the 16th century but was unroofed in the mid-20th century and is now in ruins. Although

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled peop ...

was always a major industry for the local inhabitants,

coal mining Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

was also important from the second half of the 18th century onwards, and the last local pits to the south-east of the village remained in operation until 1944. In the 1790s the

Leominster Canal The Leominster Canal was an English canal which ran for just over 18 miles from Mamble to Leominster through 16 locks and a number of tunnels, some of which suffered engineering problems even before the canal opened. Originally the canal was p ...

was opened in the area, which allowed coal to be brought down from the colliery by tramway and carried to

and

Herefordshire Herefordshire () is a county in the West Midlands of England, governed by Herefordshire Council. It is bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Monmouthshire ...

, but the canal was unprofitable and was closed in 1859. There was once a greyhound coursing club in the village in the mid-19th century when races were run for a silver cup. Mamble is chiefly remembered today as the title of a 1915 poem by John Drinkwater speculating about what lay at the end of a turning that he never took: :The finger-post says Mamble, :and that is all I know, :of the narrow road to Mamble.Drinkwater, John, ''Selected Poems of John Drinkwater'', pp.31-32. 'Mamble' (From Swords and Ploughshares, 1915)
published 1922 Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd. London. Retrieved 21 June 2009

References

Villages in Worcestershire Civil parishes in Worcestershire {{Worcestershire-geo-stub