Alcester, Warwickshire

Historical Description

Alcester, a town and a parish in Warwickshire, near the borders of Worcestershire. The town stands at the confluence of the Aine and the Arrow, 7 miles SE of Redditch, and 8 W by N of Stratford-on-Avon; it has a station on the G.W.R. and M.R., 119 miles from London. The Roman station Alauna is believed to have stood on or near its site, and the Roman road (Icknield Street) may still be traced in the vicinity. Roman pavements, substructions, coins, and urns have been found. The place had great importance in the times of the Saxons, and was a royal residence at the period of the Conquest. A Benedictine abbey was founded in 1140 on an island about ½ a mile to the N, but it fell into decay, became a cell of Evesham Abbey, and has long disappeared. Alcester was made a borough by Henry I., and it continued to be of note in the 16th and 17th centuries, but it is now within the jurisdiction of the county magistrates. It is a quiet little town, pleasantly situated amid softly wooded hills. The town-hall, a wooden building supported on stone pillars, was built in 1641; in the basement (formerly the market-place) the county court and petty sessions are held. The Corn Exchange, built in 1857, is used for the corn market, which is held on Tuesdays, and also for concerts, &c. Cattle sales are held on Wednesdays, instead of the old fairs; but hiring-fairs are still held at Michaelmas. Alcester was formerly celebrated for the manufacture of needles and fish-hooks, but the bulk of that industry has been removed to Redditch; needle drilling, stamping, and scouring are still largely carried on. The Hertford Memorial Hospital was opened in 1886. There are eight alms-houses, a branch of the Birmingham Banking Co., and a local weekly newspaper. The parish church was rebuilt in 1732, and enlarged and restored in 1870. It originally belonged to the priory of Alcester, then to the nunnery of Cokehill, and passed at the dissolution of the monasteries to the Greville family, from whom it was purchased with the manor by the Marquis of Hertford. It contains a good Decorated western tower of three stages, with crocketed pinnacles, a well-preserved altar-tomb of Sir Fulke Greville and his wife, and a splendid monument of the second Marquis of Hertford; also, a carved pulpit and an old oaken chest. Beauchamp Court, in the north of the town, now a farmhouse, was formerly the residence of the Beauchamp and Greville families. There are Wesleyan and Baptist chapels, and a post office under Redditeh. The parish of Alcester comprises 1782 acres; population of the civil parish, 2406; of the ecclesiastical, 2443. The manor belongs to the Marquis of Hertford, whose seat, Ragley Hall, is about 2 miles SW of the town. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Worcester; net value, £220. Patron, the Marquis of Hertford. Admiral Beauchamp Seymour was raised to the peerage in 1882 with the title of Baron Alcester.

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Church Records

The Warwickshire County Record Office hold the following registers for Alcester:

Most of the records prior to 1911 have been digitised and are available on Ancestry.co.uk

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Alcester from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Alcester (St. Nicholas))

Land and Property

The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Warwickshire is available to browse.

Maps

Online maps of Alcester are available from a number of sites:

• Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• Google Streetview.
• National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
• OpenStreetMap.
• old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
• Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)

Newspapers and Periodicals

The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Warwickshire papers online:

• Leamington Spa Courier

Visitations Heraldic

The Visitation of Warwickshire 1619 is available on the Heraldry page.