CHAPTER I.

SITUATION OF EVESHAM, AND ORIGIN OF ITS NAME.

VESHAM is seated in the bosom of the vale that sweeps from the bases of the Cotteswold Hills on the east and south, and is guarded at the west by Bredon Hill. Geologically considered, it stands upon a lias plain at the foot of an oölitic range; and thus its vicinage as students of the science prove-must once have been a vast abyss sunk in primeval ocean, the muddy floor of which is now blue clay, retaining in its bed the fossilized remains of animals, insects, and vegetables, that lived and flourished in the earliest ages of our world.

The town, of which we are to write, is situated upon a peninsula formed by the Avon, at the south-eastern part of Worcestershire, bordering upon the counties of Warwick and Gloucester. It is within the hundred of Blakenhurste; a name, which from its Saxon compounds, may be considered equivalent to Black Forest. The hundred was originally called that of Fisseberge, being so recorded in Domesday book. Bp. Thomas supposes the latter name to have originated in the legend connected with the founder of the monastery, which asserts that a key thrown by him into the Avon, here, was found in the stomach of a fish, at Rome. When the name was altered does not appear: but Henry I. gave to the abbey a charter conferring jurisdiction over the hundred of Blakenhurste; the seal

of which having been broken, a grant was made in the 25th of Henry III. importing that the seal should be as effectual though cracked, as if it were remaining whole.'

The town stands upon the Worcester and London turnpike roadtill 1842 the mail coach line,—is on the high road from Leicester to Bristol, and in the direct route from Cheltenham to Leamington. It is distant from London 92 miles, from Worcester 15, from Cheltenham the same, from Tewkesbury 13, from Alcester 10, from Stratford-on-Avon 14, from Warwick and Leamington 23, and from Birmingham 30 miles. The Gloucester and Birmingham Railway approaches the town within 9 miles, at the Defford station. The Imperial line of Railway, by Evesham, projected in 1839 to connect the cities of Dublin and London, unfortunately failed to obtain the preference of the government commissioners in their report of the following spring, chiefly on account of the estimated expense; though confessedly the only route by which letters could be answered in both capitals by the return of the same day's post. But while we are engaged in printing this sheet, the Great Western Company, having connected Oxford with London by their line, are applying for powers to cross to the Grand Junction Railway at Wolverhampton, by a new line, upon the broad-guaged rail, through Banbury, Evesham, Worcester, Kidderminster, and Stourbridge. This, if effected, will readily diffuse the crops raised round our town through a widely extended district.

Evesham can aspire to no earlier an origin than the eighth century, at the beginning of which its subsequently splendid monastery was founded. Prior to that event its site was occupied by an extended forest, in which the swineherds of the Anglo-saxon occupiers tended on their charge. Dr. Stukeley claimed for Evesham a Roman origin; considering it as the lost station Ad Antonam, which is known to have been hereabout. Our own reason for dissenting from this opinion is given in a subsequent chapter upon "Military Stations and Roads." William of Malmesbury, writing in the twelfth century, while recording the legendary loneliness of the spot during the Saxon heptarchy, observes that a small church had previously been erected here, the origin of which he attributes to

1 Dugdale's Warwickshire, by Thomas, p. 921.

the Christian-and therefore Romanized-Britons. In connection with this remark, we may be permitted to observe that the situation of the site, midway-as we shall afterward endeavour to prove— between the stations of Alnacestre and Ad Antonam, may not improbably have rendered it a halting-place in marching or travelling from one to the other. But this is merely a suggestion, which we do not undertake to establish. For though coins of the emperors have frequently been found within the modern borough and its immediate neighbourhood, as where have they not?-we are indisposed by the employment of such material to weave an elaborated theory.

Before the foundation of the monastery, the name of the placeas stated in the abbey registers-was Ethomme, and also Homme. The latter is peculiarly appropriate to its peninsular form; being a word still used in the Scottish dialect-which is singularly exact in connection with natural objects to indicate the low or level ground on the banks of a stream or river. After the erection of the monastery the spot was called Eoves' Holme from a swineherd named Eoves, who had been employed on it, and whose verbal representations to the diocesan had resulted in the foundation of the convent. From Eoves-holme the name would readily be contracted to Evesham as still employed.

The assumed sanctity of the spot, and the importance of its monastery soon identified its name with the whole country round. For the fruitful valley in which it is seated is styled 'the Vale of Evesham,' both far and near. The circuit of this extended district is defined by an observant resident as reaching from the Cotteswold Hills to the Malvern range; and from the former eminence, immediately above the village of Mickleton, a rich and comprehensive

2 The writer to whom we have alluded, incumbent of Mickleton at the time, thus describes the scene." There was an extensive prospect of the rich vale of Evesham, bounded at a distance by the Malvern hills. The towers and spires, which rose among the tufted trees, were strongly illuminated by the sloping rays of the sun; and the whole scene was enlivened by the music of the birds, the responsive notes of the thrushes from the neighbouring hawthorns, and the thrilling strains of the skylark, who, as she soared towards the heavens, seemed to be chanting forth her matins to the great Creator of the universe."-REV. RICHARD GRAVES. Spiritual Quixote, book ii. chap. 5.

of which having been broken, a grant was made in the 25th of Henry III. importing that the seal should be as effectual though cracked, as if it were remaining whole.1

The town stands upon the Worcester and London turnpike roadtill 1842 the mail coach line,—is on the high road from Leicester to Bristol, and in the direct route from Cheltenham to Leamington. It is distant from London 923 miles, from Worcester 15, from Cheltenham the same, from Tewkesbury 13, from Alcester 10, from Stratford-on-Avon 14, from Warwick and Leamington 23, and from Birmingham 30 miles. The Gloucester and Birmingham Railway approaches the town within 9 miles, at the Defford station. The Imperial line of Railway, by Evesham, projected in 1839 to connect the cities of Dublin and London, unfortunately failed to obtain the preference of the government commissioners in their report of the following spring, chiefly on account of the estimated expense; though confessedly the only route by which letters could be answered in both capitals by the return of the same day's post. But while we are engaged in printing this sheet, the Great Western Company, having connected Oxford with London by their line, are applying for powers to cross to the Grand Junction Railway at Wolverhampton, by a new line, upon the broad-guaged rail, through Banbury, Evesham, Worcester, Kidderminster, and Stourbridge. This, if effected, will readily diffuse the crops raised round our town through a widely extended district.

Evesham can aspire to no earlier an origin than the eighth century, at the beginning of which its subsequently splendid monastery was founded. Prior to that event its site was occupied by an extended forest, in which the swineherds of the Anglo-saxon occupiers tended on their charge. Dr. Stukeley claimed for Evesham a Roman origin; considering it as the lost station Ad Antonam, which is known to have been hereabout. Our own reason for dissenting from this opinion is given in a subsequent chapter upon "Military Stations and Roads.' William of Malmesbury, writing in the twelfth century, while recording the legendary loneliness of the spot during the Saxon heptarchy, observes that a small church had previously been erected here, the origin of which he attributes to

1 Dugdale's Warwickshire, by Thomas, p. 921.