Battle of Worcester was also a time of terror for the villages

AS the City of Worcester prepares to remember the 370th Anniversary of the Battle of Worcester around September 3 with its annual drumhead service on Fort Royal Hill, re-enactors events around the city and a banquet in the Guildhall, give a thought to the villages that surround the city which were also affected by the English Civil War.

Worcester saw a great deal of military action throughout the English Civil War from the very first action of the conflict at the Battle of Powick Bridge on September 23 1642 to the last scene of the war the Battle of Worcester in 1651 but so did the local villages.

The villages of White Ladies Aston, Broughton Hackett, Spetchley and Churchill lie about three miles east of the city centre and consequently were affected by events throughout the war.

Before the Battle of Powick Bridge, an attempt was made to capture the silver plate escorted by Sir John Byron that was travelling from Oxford to King Charles I in Shrewsbury.

Both sides speak the same language, wear the same style of clothing and is a brutal fight where  neighbours could be on opposing sides

His route along the now A44 led his troops past White Ladies Aston and into Worcester. The opposing parliamentary troops, under Colonel John Brown, went in pursuit along today’s A422 through Broughton Hackett, Spetchley, past Worcester and on to Powick where Prince Rupert rode to the rescue of the royalist forces and their precious cargo.

From this time the villages were involved in various ways in the war. In September 1643, Charles I and Prince Rupert were in Pershore and on September 13 Prince Rupert was in the village of White Ladies Aston mustering troops to fight for the king.

John Good of Aston Court and Charles Berkeley of Spetchley joined the royalist cavalry and fought at the Battle of Newbury.

 

Later during the siege of Worcester in the summer of 1646 property of the Berkeley family of Spetchley was damaged in artillery bombardments. However, the final battle of the war brought another dimension to the war.

The Battle of Worcester in 1651 saw Charles II and Cromwell converging on the city from opposite directions; the royalist troops from Scotland and Cromwell’s forces from Warwick. Charles selected the property of Sir Robert Berkeley of Spetchley as his headquarters in the city, now the King Charles House in New Street, while Cromwell reached White Ladies Aston on August 30 and slept the night at Aston Hall Farm, the home of the Symonds family.

Here the village felt the terror of the war. A civil war is a conflict in which both sides speak the same language, wear the same style of clothing and is a brutal fight where  neighbours could be on opposing sides.

Around the village of White Ladies 14,000 parliamentary forces were billeted, villagers were forced to provide food and drink and refusal resulted in terrible consequences.

 

At nearby Aston Court the property was destroyed by Cromwell’s troops and members of the Good family who lived there were assaulted.

Nearby the Tudor hall at Spetchley was burnt down by Scottish troops to prevent the property falling into Cromwell’s hands.

The battle was fiercely fought on the edge of the Spetchley estate at the appropriately named Red Hill, where the  the Royalist assault was halted, turning the tide of war into a victory for Cromwell.

Then followed the escape of Charles from his Berkeley residence in the city, riding desperately to avoid arrest, hiding up the famous oak tree before finally sailing into exile in Europe.