Malvern (, locally also: ) is a spa town and civil parish in Worcestershire, England. It lies at the foot of the Malvern Hills, a designated National Landscape (formerly known as Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty). The centre of Malvern, Great Malvern, is a historic conservation area, which grew dramatically in Victorian times due to the natural mineral water springs in the vicinity, including Malvern water.
At the 2021 census it had a population of 30,462. It includes Great Malvern on the steep eastern flank of the Malvern Hills, as well as the former independent urban district of Malvern Link. Many of the major suburbs and settlements that comprise the town are separated by large tracts of open common land and fields, and together with smaller civil parishes adjoining the town's boundaries and the hills, the built up area is often referred to collectively as The Malverns.
Archaeological evidence suggests that Bronze Age people had settled in the area around 1000 BC, although it is not known whether these settlements were permanent or temporary. The town itself was founded in the 11th century when Benedictine monks established a priory at the foot of the highest peak of Malvern Hills. During the 19th century Malvern developed rapidly from a village to a sprawling conurbation owing to its popularity as a hydrotherapy spa based on its spring waters. Immediately following the decline of spa tourism towards the end of the 19th century, the town's focus shifted to education with the establishment of several private boarding schools in former hotels and large villas. A further major expansion was the result of the relocation of the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) to Malvern in 1942. QinetiQ, TRE's successor company, remained the town's largest local employer in 2009.
Malvern is the largest place in the parliamentary constituency of West Worcestershire and the district of Malvern Hills, being also the district's administrative seat. The civil parish is governed by Malvern Town Council from its offices in Great Malvern.
Toponymy The name Malvern is derived from Common Brittonic, an ancient British or old Welsh Celtic language moel-bryn, meaning "Bare or Bald Hill", the modern equivalent being the Welsh moelfryn (bald hill). It has been known as Malferna (11th century), Malverne (12th century), and Much Malvern (16–17th century).
History
Bronze Age to monastic times
Flint axes, arrowheads, and flakes found in the area are attributed to early Bronze Age settlers, and the "Shire Ditch", a late Bronze Age boundary earthwork possibly dating from around 1000 BC, was constructed along part of the crest of the hills near the site of later settlements. The Wyche Cutting, a pass through the hills, was in use in prehistoric times as part of the salt route from the town of Droitwich Spa to South Wales. A 19th-century discovery of over two hundred metal money bars suggests that the area had been inhabited by the La Tène people around 250 BC. Ancient folklore has it that the British Iron Age chieftain Caratacus made his last stand against the Romans at the British Camp, a site of extensive Iron Age earthworks on a summit of the Malvern Hills close to where Malvern was to be later established. The story remains disputed, however, as Roman historian Tacitus implies a site closer to the river Severn. There is therefore no evidence that Roman presence ended the prehistoric settlement at British Camp. However, excavations at nearby Midsummer Hill fort, Bredon Hill, and Croft Ambrey all show evidence of violent destruction around the year 48 AD. This may suggest that the British Camp was abandoned or destroyed around the same time.
A study made by Royal Commission in 2005 that includes aerial photographs of the Hills "amply demonstrates the archaeological potential of this largely neglected landscape, and provides food for thought for a number of research projects". A pottery industry based on the Malverns left remains dating from the Late Bronze Age to the Norman Conquest, shown by methods of archaeological petrology. Via the River Severn, products were traded as far as South Wales. The Longdon and other marshes at the foot of Malvern Chase were grazed by cattle. "Woodland management was considerable", providing fuel for the kilns.
Monastic Malvern
Little is known about Malvern over the next thousand years until it is described as "an hermitage, or some kind of religious house, for seculars, before the conquest, endowed by the gift of Edward the Confessor". The additions to William Dugdale's Monasticon include an extract from the Pleas taken before the King at York in 1387, stating that there was a congregation of hermits at Malvern "some time before the conquest". Although a Malvern priory existed before the Norman Conquest, it is the settlement of nearby Little Malvern, the site of another, smaller priory, that is mentioned in the Domesday Book. A motte-and-bailey castle built on the top tier of the earthworks of the British Camp just before the Norman Conquest was probably founded by the Saxon Earl Harold Godwinson of Hereford. It was destroyed by King Henry II in 1155.
The town developed around its 11th-century priory, a Benedictine monastery, of which only the large parish church and the abbey gateway remain. Several slightly different histories explain the actual founding of the religious community. Legend tells that the settlement began following the murder of St. Werstan, a monk of Deerhurst, who fled from the Danes and took refuge in the woods of Malvern, where the hermitage had been established. St Werstan's oratory is thought to have been on the site of a Chapel dedicated to the archangel St Michael's, which is believed to have stood on the site of Bello Sguardo, a Victorian villa, which was built on the site of Hermitage Cottage. The cottage was demolished in 1825 and religios carvings were found in it, along with a mediaeval undercroft, human bones, and parts of a coffin. Although the legend may be monastic mythology, historians have however concluded that St. Werstan was the original martyr.
The first prior, Aldwyn of Malvern, founded the monastery on his bishop's advice, and by 1135 the monastery included thirty monks. Aldwyn was succeeded by Walcher of Malvern, an astronomer and philosopher from the Duchy of Lorraine in France, whose gravestone inside the priory church records details that the priory arose in 1085 from a hermitage endowed by Edward the Confessor. An ancient stained glass window in the Priory church depicts the legend of St. Werstan, with details of his vision, the consecration of his chapel, Edward the Confessor granting the charter for the site, and Werstan's martyrdom.
An 18th-century document states that in the 18th year of the reign of William the Conqueror (probably 1083), a priory was dedicated to St Mary the Virgin. Victoria County History describes how a hermit Aldwyn, who lived in the reign of Edward the Confessor, had petitioned the Earl of Gloucester for the original site (of the Priory) in the wood, and cites his source as "Gervase of Canterbury, Mappa Mundi (Rolls ser.)".
Large estates in Malvern were part of crown lands given to Gilbert "the Red", the seventh Earl of Gloucester and sixth Earl of Hertford, on his marriage to Joan of Acre the daughter of Edward I, in 1290. Disputed hunting rights on these led to several armed conflicts with Humphrey de Bohun, 3rd Earl of Hereford that Edward resolved. Nott states that Gilbert made gifts to the Priory, and describes his "great conflict" with Thomas de Cantilupe, Bishop of Hereford, also about hunting rights and a ditch that Gilbert dug, that was settled by costly litigation. Gilbert had a similar conflict with Godfrey Giffard, Bishop and Administrator of Worcester Cathedral (and formerly Chancellor of England). Godfrey, who had granted land to the Priory, had jurisdictional disputes about Malvern Priory, resolved by Robert Burnell, the current Chancellor.
A discussion in 2005 about the stained glass windows of the Priory Church in terms of the relationship between Church and Laity stresses the importance of Malvern in the development of stained glass. It refers to "the vast and strategically important estates of which Malvern was a part" in the 15th and 16th centuries, to a widespread awareness of Malvern Prior], to the likelihood of a pilgrimage route through the town. The discussion also mentions Thomas Walsingham's view that Malvern was a hiding place of the Lollardy knight Sir John Oldcastle in 1414. Chambers wrote, in relation to the stained glass, "the situation of Malvern was so much admired by Henry VII, his queen (Elizabeth of York) and their two sons, Prince Arthur, and Prince Henry" that they made substantial endowments.
As a royal forest, the area and the surrounding chase were subject to forest law. By Tudor times, royal lands had become used as common land and forest law had fallen into disuse.
Post dissolution During the dissolution of the monasteries the local commissioners were instructed to ensure that abbey churches used for parish worship, should continue or could be purchased by parishioners. Malvern Priory was thus acquired by a William Pinnocke and with it, much of the 15th century stained glass windows. The monastic buildings were taken apart and anything usable was sold off. With the exception of the church building (of which the south transept adjoining the monastery's cloisters was destroyed), all that remains of Malvern's monastery is the Abbey Gateway (also known as the Priory Gatehouse) that houses today's Malvern Museum.Erroneously referred to as the Abbey Gateway, the Priory Gatehouse was built in the late 15th century, and is the second oldest building in Great Malvern after the Norman Priory Church.
The contemporary antiquary John Leland described the Malvern Hills and Hanley Castle. An Elizabethan land grant of 1558 mentions Holy Well. A Crown grant of tithes in 1589 mentions lambs, pigs, calves, eggs, hemp and flax. Elizabeth made her Chancellor, Sir Thomas Bromley, the lord of the manor.
King Charles I attempted to enclose and sell two thirds of the Chase, as part of a wider attempt to raise revenue for the Crown from the sale of royal forests. The attempts to enclose the lands, used as commons, resulted in riots, part of a pattern of disturbances that ran across the disafforested royal lands. In 1633, the Court of Exchequer Chamber decreed the rights of the public to two thirds of the lands on the Malvern Hills, and rights of Sir Cornelius Vermuyden and his descendants, and the Crown, to one third (quoted in the preamble to the Malvern Hills Act of 1884). By that time, Malvern had become an established community and the major settlement in the Malvern Chase.
Development as a spa (17th–19th centuries)