100 years ago

GEORGE Pitt, Edward Lyon and William Brooks were charged by P.C. Mann with using catapults in the Mathon Road. All pleaded guilty. Major Hill, as chairman of the Streets Committee, referred to the numerous complaints about damage to street lamps. Defendants were each fined 10s., including costs. Malvern Gazette, December 14, 1900.

JAMES Griffin, coal merchant, of Ledbury was summoned by Joseph Bromage, Inspector SPCA, for causing a horse to be worked in an unfit state. Inspector Bromage stated that he was in Ledbury Market and saw a horse attached to a four-wheel van. He noticed the animal was very poor and only able to get along with difficulty. Witness saw an old wound on the back. He saw that the pad was saturated with blood and matter. A screw had worked through the pad into the wound. Ledbury Free Press, December 18, 1900.

50 years ago

FOR more than two hours on Friday Malvern old age pensioners queued outside Priory Lodge Hall where at 10am Mr James Watkins (chairman of Malvern Urban District Council) and Council officials began to distribute 1,200 food parcels from the Dominions and Colonies.

At one time the queue, sometimes four deep, extended as far as the Grange Road traffic lights.

Among the gifts were corned beef, dripping, tinned fruit, powdered milk, ham and bacon sent by the people of Malvern, Australia.

Beef stew was received from Tanganyika, dripping from New Zealand and soap from Melbourne, Australia. Malvern Gazette, December 15, 1950.

LOCAL history can be seen depicted in films at the special presentation of news reels at the camp Theatre, Ledbury, on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, January 9, 10 and 11, produced by the Ledbury Amateur Cine and Dramatic Society. The pictures will include shots of the 1947 Carnival; the Conservative Fete in Ledbury Park last year, and local weddings. Ledbury Reporter, December 15, 1950.

25 years ago

ONLY one member of Hereford and Worcester County Education Committee, meeting on Monday, supported a call for the closure of Malvern Hills College.

The lone opponent of what amounted to a full vote of confidence in this adult education centre was councillor Tom Wareing, Redditch - the man who actually moved the private resolution urging that the college should shut down from next September. Malvern Gazette, December 18, 1975.

WORKMEN renovating an 11th Century Ledbury building have uncovered evidence of how their great great great grandfathers lived - and ate. The Severn Stars has been an inn since 1526, so the licensee, Mr Jenkin Philips, was not surprised to hear that a strange metal contraption had been found up the chimney. It turned out to be a roasting spit, still in good repair, and possibly 600 years old. Ledbury Reporter, December 18, 1975.