Dodderhill (St. Augustine)

DODDERHILL (St. Augustine), a parish, in the union and parliamentary borough of Droitwich, Upper division of the hundred of Halfshire, E. division of the county of Worcester, ½ a mile (N.) from the town of Droitwich; containing, with the township of Elmbridge, 2130 inhabitants. It is intersected by the river Salwarp and the road from Droitwich to Bromsgrove, and comprises 3437 acres of a rich and highly productive soil, and about 100 acres of common or waste; the produce is principally wheat and beans: the surface of the land is rather hilly. Two miles from Droitwich, on the Bromsgrove road, is the pleasant village of Wichbold. The Birmingham canal, and the Birmingham and Gloucester railway, pass through the eastern part of the parish. The living is a vicarage, endowed with part of the rectorial tithes, and valued in the king's books at £12. 12. 3½.; net income, £500; patron, the Rev. John Jackson, M.A., the present vicar: several individuals have the impropriation of the remainder of the rectorial tithes. The church is a curious edifice, originally built in the year 1175; it was partly destroyed in the parliamentary war, but was rebuilt, and now consists of the north transept of a Norman church, with a chancel of later date, and a south transept, upon which the tower stands; the nave has been entirely destroyed. From the hill on the summit of which the church is seated, the parish derives its name; it commands a pleasing view of the town and neighbourhood of Droitwich. At Elmbridge is a chapel of ease; also a school, with an endowment; and several small benefactions are distributed among the poor. A free chapel, or hospital, was founded in the 13th of Edward I., and dedicated to St. Mary, by William de Dovere, for a master and poor brethren, who were under the government of the prior of Worcester, and whose lands, at the suppression of free chapels in the reign of Edward VI., were valued at £21. 11. 8. The remains are the property of Charles Pumfrey, Esq., solicitor, of Droitwich, but are about to be removed, to make way for the Stoke branch of the Oxford and Wolverhampton railway.