TOURISM chiefs hope that Worcester will become a magnet for Americans following the discovery that two of the country's most famous presidents visited the city.

Yesterday, the Evening News told how America's second and third presidents, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, visited Worcester in 1786 to pay homage to Oliver Cromwell's defeat of the Royalists.

The story was revealed in a previously unpublished diary entry, discovered by academic Dr Alice Hiller.

It also described the men's disgust at the indifference shown by Worcester residents towards the old battleground.

Now city council information officer Bob Blandford has said that, although Worcester already had strong links with the US, the discovery of the visit should boost the tourist market.

"This will further strengthen our ties with them," he said.

However, Americans might be surprised by the visit because it happened just three years after the 1783 peace treaty between Britain and the United States, following the end of the War of Independence.

Dr Hiller learnt of the April, 1786, trip to the Fort Royal Hill, next to Fort Royal Park, while researching for her book, which will be published in the US next year and explores how Britain and America separated culturally after the War of Independence.

Dr Hiller said that the pair wanted to see the site where, as John Adams wrote, "liberty was fought for" 135 years earlier, in the English Civil War.

Adams even declared the site, off Wyld's Lane, as "holy ground" and said city folk should make a yearly pilgrimage there.

"They came here because, for them, the idea of the people asserting control, which Cromwell represented, was crucial to the American Revolution and Worcester was the turning point where Charles II was defeated," said Dr Hiller, who is based in London.

"It was the British idea of liberty which the American Revolution was based on."

At the time of the visit, Thomas Jefferson was the US ambassador in Paris and John Adams was ambassador in London.