Bewdley

Bewdley and surrounding area (Ordnance Survey)

The main part of Bewdley town is situated on the western bank of the River Severn, including the main street—Load Street. Its name derives from lode, an old word for ferry. Load Street is notable for its width: it once also served as the town's market place.

Most of Bewdley's shops and amenities are situated along Load Street, at the top of which lies St Anne's Church, built between 1745 and 1748 by Doctor Thomas Woodward of Chipping Campden.

Bewdley from the racks, 2019

Beyond the church, High Street leads off to the south towards Stourport along the B4194, a road known locally as "the switchback" because of its many sharp curves. Unlike in many English towns, High Street is so called not because of its importance to commerce, but because of its geographical position 'high' above the river.

On the west side of the church, the B4190, named Welch Gate within town limits (so called because it once contained a tollgate on the road towards Wales) climbs steeply up to the west, giving access to the south side of the Wyre Forest. Dowles Road, a continuation of the B4194, leads northwest to Button Oak, along the east and northeast side of the Wyre Forest. To the northeast of the town is the wooded hilltop of Wassel Wood in Trimpley, the southern terminus of Shatterford Hill.

In the area between Stourport and Bewdley are several large country houses. Witley Court, Astley Hall, and Pool House are considered particularly significant.

Bewdley Guildhall

Mesolithic-period settlers have been identified through excavations in Wribbenhall, which found 1,400 fragments of flint tools, as well as post holes, a hearth, gullies and a pit. This site has been dated to roughly 6,800 BC, making it the oldest settlement yet identified in Worcestershire. Pollen evidence shows that crops were already being grown and woodlands cleared at this time.[3]

The settlement of Wribbenhall, on the eastern side of the Severn, and now part of Bewdley, was recorded in the Domesday Book as being part of the manor of Kidderminster. By the 14th century, the town had come to be known as Beau lieu, French for "Beautiful place." Two centuries later John Leland wrote in his Itinerary that "a man cannot wish to see a towne better".

Bewdley was granted borough status, as well as a weekly market, by King Edward IV in 1472. It retained this status until the local government reorganisation in 1974. A parliamentary report of 1777 listed Bewdley as having a parish workhouse accommodating up to 80 inmates.

Samuel Kenrick (1728–1811) moved to Bewdley in 1765 and lived there as a banker for the rest of his life. Throughout that time he wrote lengthy letters to his old Glasgow University friend, Rev. James Wodrow, minister in Stevenston, Ayrshire. Their correspondence contains many insights into life in late eighteenth-century Bewdley. For example, Kenrick described one of the annual visits to the town by the Methodist preacher, Rev. John Wesley, who "has a little flock in this town whom he statedly visits in his regular excursions …. Sometimes he comes accompanied with the noise & parade of half a score horsemen, preceding his chariot, who set our whole streets in a gaze …. His friends consist of serious well disposed people of all denominations, who go under the name of Methodists." (Samuel Kenrick to James Wodrow, 20 March, 1786).[4]

The borough had a population in 1841 of 7,458.[5]

During the Second World War, Ribbesford House in Bewdley was used as the headquarters for the Free French officer cadets. The cadets consisted of 200 teenagers who undertook military training at Ribbesford House until they joined with other allied forces in the D Day invasion.[6]

Bewdley is now governed by three tiers of local government, in increasing order of size: Bewdley town council, Wyre Forest district council, and Worcestershire county council.

For many centuries Bewdley had its own Member of Parliament (MP), most notably Stanley Baldwin, who served as the Conservative Prime Minister, who represented it from 1908 to 1937. Reflecting changes in population, in 1950 the Bewdley constituency was abolished, and the town was included in the Kidderminster constituency.

In 1983, the Kidderminster constituency (including Bewdley) was absorbed into the Wyre Forest constituency. The MP for Wyre Forest is Mark Garnier of the Conservative Party, who in 2010 unseated the incumbent, Richard Taylor of Independent Kidderminster Hospital and Health Concern (often simply Health Concern), a local organisation. The Labour Party held the seat from 1997 to 2001.

The former quayside on the western bank of the river has been much upgraded and landscaped over the last few decades. Its rows of Georgian townhouses and buildings are well seen from Telford's bridge. Since the completion of the flood defences in 2006 (see below), a "Civic Space" has been introduced to replace the old bandstand. It is used on a variety of occasions, including the twice monthly Bewdley Riverside Market.

Bewdley Bridge and Severn Side South, 2003

The River Severn often used to flood in winter, damaging many houses and commercial premises in Bewdley. Among the worst floods in living memory were those in 1947, 1968 and 2000, where 140 properties were affected but after the 2000 floods, plans were made for flood defences on the western bank, completed in April 2006, costing £7 million.[7] Temporary barriers are also put up to protect properties on the eastern side of the river in Wribbenhall. Bewdley's long experience of dealing with flooding resulted in the National Flood Forum being held in the town in 2002.

Bewdley Bridge over the Severn was built in 1798 by Thomas Telford. It was erected to replace the 1483 medieval bridge that was swept away in the floods of 1795. A modern road bridge, opened to the southeast of the town at Blackstone in 1987 after many decades of campaigning, carries the Bewdley bypass across the river.

The Tenbury and Bewdley Railway branched off Severn Valley Railway at Bewdley, and ran through the Wyre Forest to Tenbury Wells. It crossed the river at Dowles, a little to the north of Bewdley. The bridge was abandoned and dismantled in 1965, although its imposing brick and stone pillars remain. It was originally opened 100 years earlier, in August 1865.[8]

Three state schools are located in Bewdley. Of these, two are primary schools: St Anne's CE Primary School on the west side of town and Bewdley Primary School in Wribbenhall on the eastern side of the Severn. Both were founded in 2007 when the region returned to a two-tier education system, replacing the former first and middle schools. [9][10]

The single secondary school is The Bewdley School.

The Bewdley Grammar School on Lax Lane closed in the 1800s. Since then, the former grammar school has been adapted for many art galleries and art and craft activities. After the closure of Bewdley Grammar School, Bewdley High School & Sixth Form Centre was built on the opposite side of the river with new buildings. In 2007, Bewdley High School closed after 54 years due to an educational tier change that reorganised education as primary and secondary schools. All high schools were being replaced by new secondary schools.[11]

In 2007, after new construction, landscaping, building refurbishments and extensions, The Bewdley School opened as a new secondary school. It has extensive new facilities for the arts, science and outdoor learning.[12] The Bewdley Sixth Form is also part of The Bewdley School, collectively offering GCSE and A Level courses.

In 2019, The Bewdley School won 'Secondary School of the Year' at the Worcestershire Educational Awards.[13]

Bewdley Bridge

• Stanley Baldwin, who served as prime minister three times between 1923 and 1937, was born at Lower Park House, Lower Park, in 1867. He served as MP for the town from 1908 for nearly thirty years and, in 1937, became Earl Baldwin of Bewdley.[25]
• John Beddoe, ethnologist, was born in Bewdley in 1826.[26]
• Jannion Steele Elliott (1871–1942), ornithologist and naturalist, lived at Dowles Manor from 1903 until his death.
• Alun Evans, footballer, who in 1968 became the most expensive teenage transfer in history, moving from Wolverhampton Wanderers to Liverpool F.C., was born in the town.
• Becky Hill, singer.
• Will Holland (Quantic), musician, DJ and record producer, is from Bewdley.
• Karl Hyde, musician, best known as a member of British techno/electronic music band Underworld was born in Bewdley.[27]
• Brian Turner Tom Lawrence, awarded the Victoria Cross in the Boer War, was born in Bewdley.
• Rustie Lee, TV chef and actress has lived in the town and local area for 20 years.
• Alison Mardell, solicitor and senior Royal Air Force officer, was born here.
• Former Led Zeppelin lead- and now solo singer Robert Plant lives in the nearby village of Upper Arley, and is a member of Bewdley Tennis and Rowing Club(s).
• Kayleigh Pearson, model, grew up in Bewdley, and attended Bewdley High School, now The Bewdley School.
• Mary Whitehouse, TV/radio clean-up campaigner, founder of Mediawatch UK, lived at Bewdley in late 1960s.[28]

• Fort-Mahon-Plage, Somme, Hauts-de-France, France
• Vellmar, Hesse, Germany
• Clarksville, Indiana, United States

• Larkham, Peter J., and John Pendlebury. "Reconstruction planning and the small town in early post‐war Britain." Planning Perspectives 23#3 (2008): 291–321. Case study
• Pevsner, Nikolaus; Brookes, Alan (2007), Worcestershire, The Buildings of England (Revised ed.), London: Yale University Press (published January 2007), ISBN 9780300112986, OL 10319229M

• Bewdley Parish (Church of England)
• Bewdley Town Council