Kempsey, Worcestershire

According to 'Kempsey Collection' page 9, a piece of iron dated 1500-800 BC was dug up in the Court Meadow area, and is now in the Foregate Museum, Worcester. At that time the River Severn was tidal at Kempsey, and there was extensive marshland and forest in the Severn valley.

An Iron Age promontory fort can be found by the Severn at Kempsey.[2]

Roman Milestone

A Roman milestone dedicated to the Emperor Constantine the Great (AD 307 – 337) was found in about 1818 when ground was being levelled for a vegetable garden for Court House, opposite the west gate of the churchyard. According to O'Neil,[3] this was probably not its original position as the nearest Roman road was about one mile (2 km) away. It could have previously been used as masonry for the Bishop's Palace due to the lack of suitable building stone in Kempsey. The Victoria County History entry describes this as "an inscription found some years before 1818, lying in two pieces with other stones 4 feet (1.2 m) deep in the west wall of the kitchen garden of the parsonage farm, north-west of the church. Many of the other stones were cemented together and formed some kind of ancient foundation; whether the inscription was one of these, is not recorded. It is itself a flat slab of freestone, 33 inches (840 mm) high by 20 inches (510 mm) wide, and is now in the Worcester Museum. It reads as follows:[4]

Val(erio) Constantine P(io) fe(lici) invicto Aug(usto)
'Emperor Valerius Constantinus, pious, fortunate, unconquerable, Augustus.'

"Probably the commencement of the inscription is lost; it may have begun IMP. CAES FL. Imp(eratori) Cs(ari) Fl(avio). Flavius Valerius Constantinus was Constantine the Great, and this stone was presumably set up in his reign (A.D. 308-337). It appears to be a milestone, or rather a road-stone, of the type common in the fourth century, in which the mileage was often omitted - though here it might have been broken off. But it might conceivably be no more than an honorary slab."

The stone is from the Oolites of the Cotswold Hills. It is 3 feet (910 mm) high, 19+1⁄2 inches (500 mm) broad and 7+1⁄2 inches (190 mm) thick.[5]

According to Dr. J.K. St. Joseph, writing in The Journal of Roman Studies, in a section on Roman Villas, "At Kempsey (SO 848485), four miles south of Worcester, two rectangular ditched enclosures seem to belong to the same class" (i.e. Villa enclosures having slightly curved sides). "One, which measures about 250 ft. by 100 ft., has a single entrance in the middle of the short eastern side, while two of the sides are curved, the southern being bowed inwards."[6]

There are three possible Roman roads through and near Kempsey. One may have run along Old Road South, entering the oldest area of the village where a Roman camp might have been, and exiting possibly along Lyf's Lane (although Lyf was a Saxon chief) and continuing to the Roman settlement at Worcester.

The second runs along the side of the present M5 motorway north by Holdings Lane to Taylor's Lane, where it enters St Peter the Great, Worcester.

The third, Green Street, connects Kempsey Common with the centre of the village, crossing the second Roman road mentioned above at Palmer's Cross.

Pottery, brooches and a coin from the time of the Emperor Nero were found in burial cists dug out of the gravel beds north of the church.

The Celtic tribe that lived around Kempsey in Roman times were the Dobunni.

Coenwulf, King of Mercia, gave Abbot Balthun of Kempsey Monastery thirty smallholdings in return for the military service and maintenance work of Kempsey locals, according to the Victoria County History of Worcestershire.[7]

An archaeological dig[8][9] in 2011 at the top of the bank between the church and the river excavated 42 skeletons and left more in place, and carbon 14 dating of four skeletons gave a range between the 9th and the 13th centuries A.D. The field team found skeletons from a cross-section of the local population including males, females and children. According to a speech by Tom Vaughn of the archaeology society in May 2012, there were skeletons with an age range of approximately 12 to 70 years old, and there were so many skeletons that in one place they were buried seven deep. In those days the Bishop's palace and Anglo-Saxon minster sent priests out to local parishes preaching and converting, because the country had reverted to paganism after the Romans left. The dead were brought from a wide area to Kempsey for burial, because the only Christian consecrated grounds in the area were at Kempsey and at Worcester Cathedral. As other local parishes developed there was less need for this, and Kempsey church's graveyard therefore contracted to its present size.

To commemorate the departure of the Danes Bishop Aelhun built an oratory dedicated to St. Andrew. Then the Danes raided again, and the monastery was destroyed.[1]

In 799 AD the population was about 150.

The Domesday Book says of Kempsey:

In the Hundred (Oswaldslow) The Bishop of the same Churche (Worcester) holds Chemesege (Kempsey) . There are 24 hides paying geld, 5 of these are waste. There are 2 ploughs in the demesne, 13 villeins, and 27 bordars with 16 ploughs. There is a priest, 4 serfs and 2 bondswomen and 40 acres of meadow. The woodland is a mile long and ½ a mile wide. There are 13 hides in the demesne. In the time of King Edward it was worth £16, its present value is £8.[10]

King Henry II of England (visited 1186)

King Henry III of England (visited in 1265). On 2 August 1265 Henry III was brought as a prisoner to Kempsey by Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester and leader of the English barons. Bishop Walter de Cantelupe (who the pub known as "Walls" is named after) said Mass for him in Kempsey church the next morning, before they set off to the Battle of Evesham, where de Montfort was killed.

King Edward I of England (visited 1276) & with Queen Marguerite (26 December 1281)

The population of Kempsey fell from 600 in 1299 to only 86 in 1327.

In 1303, the Reeve (the Lord's official on the manor) of Kempsey beheaded John de Draycote, a clerk, on the highway between Kempsey and Draycote, by order of the bishops bailiff. His head was placed before the Bishop's Palace gates, causing a riot, which was put down.[11]

Alexander Neckham, Abbot of Cirencester, was born on the same night as Richard the Lion-heart, and was brought up as his foster-brother. He was the first Englishman to write about chess, silkworms and the mariner's compass. He died at Kempsey in 1217, while visiting his friend Bishop Silvester.[12]

The Civil War started in 1642, and Kempsey was quickly involved. On 22 September Colonel Nathaniel Fiennes and Colonel Samuel Sandys, Governor of Worcester, led a detachment of Lord Essex's Parliamentary Army across the Severn at Pixham Ferry. The forces of Prince Rupert beat them at the Battle of Powick Bridge on Powick Ham, and many of the fugitives re-crossed the river at Kempsey.[13] However, Green writes that the victory went to the Roundheads, and that Prince Rupert was forced to flee.

Kempsey was raided on 2 July 1646, in an attempt to capture a Colonel Betsworth in his quarters. He was forewarned and eluded capture. According to Rev. Purton, "During the siege of Worcester in 1646, a squadron of 400 dragoons, under Colonel Betsworth, was quartered at Kempsey and on 2 July an attempt was made by the garrison to seize him there, which was unsuccessful." John Noake speaks of a tradition then current in the parish that Cromwell "personally superintended the battering down of the old church, and flattened the nose of every statue then and there lying."[14] There are bullet marks of the south side of the Church tower.

"In June on Whitsunday afternoon 1897 "The Revolutionary Elm" was wrecked by a sudden storm. It was probably the last of the trees planted to celebrate the events of 1688." Note: this was the Glorious Revolution of 1688-9, when the catholic King James II fled and the Protestant William of Orange (husband of the King's elder daughter Mary) was invited by parliament to be King William III of England.[1]

Severn Side, Sabrina's Stream at Kempsey on the River Severn, by B.W.Leader