Greyfriars, Worcester

Worcester ( (listen) WUUS-tər) is a cathedral city and the ceremonial county town of Worcestershire, England, 30 miles (48 km) south-west of Birmingham, 101 miles (163 km) north-west of London, 27 miles (43 km) north of Gloucester and 23 miles (37 km) north-east of Hereford. The estimated population in 2019 was 102,791.The River Severn flanks the western side of the city centre. It is overlooked by Worcester Cathedral. Worcester is the home of Royal Worcester Porcelain, composer Edward Elgar, Lea & Perrins, makers of traditional Worcestershire sauce, the University of Worcester, and Berrow's Worcester Journal, claimed as the world's oldest newspaper. The Battle of Worcester in 1651 was the final one in the English Civil War, where Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army defeated King Charles II's Royalists.

The Worcester Boer War Memorial in Worcester, England, was unveiled near Worcester Cathedral in 1908. The war memorial commemorates casualties of the Second Boer War from the county of Worcestershire. It was designated a Grade II* listed building in 1999. The memorial comprises a bronze sculptural group mounted on an octagonal Portland stone plinth and base, standing on three steps. The front of the plinth bears the inscription: 'IN GRATEFUL / MEMORY OF / THE MEN OF / WORCESTER-/ SHIRE WHO IN / SOUTH AFRICA / GAVE THEIR / LIVES FOR THEIR / COUNTRY. / A.D.1899-1902." A further inscription on the stone base quotes from Ecclesiasticus: "Their bodies are buried in peace; / but their name liveth for evermore. Ecclus XLIV 14" The bronze sculpture by William Robert Colton depicts a soldier of the Worcestershire Regiment, bare-headed and bare-armed, with a bandolier of bullets, kneeling with a bayonet affixed to his rifle held in a high "ready" position, in front of a standing winged female figure (various in various sources as an angel, or a Winged Victory, or a personification of "Immortality") with her left hand gripping a sheathed sword girt with a laurel wreath and the right holding an olive branch (or possibly a palm branch) over the head of the soldier. The memorial was unveiled on 23 September 1908 by General Sir Neville Lyttelton, on a site to the north of Worcester Cathedral. It stands close to the passing A44.

The Worcester Guildhall is a municipal building in the High Street, Worcester, England. It is a Grade I listed building.

Worcester's city walls are a sequence of defensive structures built around the city of Worcester in England between the 1st and 17th centuries. The first walls to be built around Worcester were constructed by the Romans. These early walls lasted beyond the fall of the Empire, and the defences encouraged several early Christian foundations to establish themselves in Worcester during the troubled 6th and 7th centuries. The Anglo-Saxons expanded Worcester in the 890s, forming a new walled, planned city, called a burh. The burh utilised the southern stretches of the old Roman walls, but pushed further north to enclose a much larger area. The Anglo-Saxon city walls were maintained by a share of taxes on a local market and streets, in an agreement reinforced by a royal charter. After the Norman conquest of England in the 11th century a motte and bailey castle was constructed on the south side of the city, but the Norman rulers continued to use the older burh walls, despite the city having expanded beyond these defences in the north and south-east. During the years of the Anarchy in the 1140s, Worcester was successfully attacked several times; after the war a new city wall was built to improve the city's defences. The new walls, completed by the early 13th century, were constructed of stone and had three main gates. They were maintained in good condition into the 17th century. During the English Civil War in the 1640s the old medieval walls were reinforced with modern earthwork bastions and an outlying fort, called a sconce. Worcester changed hands several times during the conflict, and after the war ended the newer fortifications were dismantled. During the 18th century the older medieval stone walls and gatehouses were sold and mostly destroyed: by the 20th century, few parts survived. Post-war archaeology in the 1950s and 1960s and construction work in the 1970s revealed previously hidden stretches of the wall, and in the 21st century plans have been drawn up to improve the conservation and maintenance of this historic monument.

Fownes Hotel and Restaurant is a hotel in Worcester, England, along the canalside. It is situated in an old Victorian glove factory. It has 63 rooms. The three-storey red brick building, with twenty-five bays, dates to 1882–4, when it was built by Yeates & Jones, 1882–4. It was later extended. It is described as having a "classic English restaurant, where meals are served on Royal Worcester porcelain".

The short siege of Worcester (29–31 May 1643) was conducted by a Parliamentary army of about 3,000 under the command of Sir William Waller. They failed to capture the city, which was defended by about 1,700 Royalists under the command of Colonel William Sandys the acting governor, and retreated back to the Parliamentary stronghold of Gloucester.

The second and longest siege of Worcester (21 May – 23 July 1646) took place towards the end of the First English Civil War, when Parliamentary forces under the command of Thomas Rainsborough besieged the city of Worcester, accepting the capitulation of the Royalist defenders on 22 July. The next day the Royalists formally surrendered possession of the city and the Parliamentarians entered Worcester 63 days after the siege began.

Worcester Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in Worcester, England, situated on a bank overlooking the River Severn. It is the seat of the Bishop of Worcester. Its official name is the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Mary the Virgin, of Worcester. The present cathedral church was built between 1084 and 1504, and represents every style of English architecture from Norman to Perpendicular Gothic. It is famous for its Norman crypt and unique chapter house, its unusual Transitional Gothic bays, its fine woodwork, and its "exquisite" central tower, which is of particularly fine proportions. The cathedral contains the tombs of King John and Prince Arthur.

St Swithun's Church is a redundant Anglican church in the city of Worcester, Worcestershire, England (grid reference SO850549). It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building, and is under the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. The church is considered to be "one of the best preserved examples of an early Georgian church in England". Clifton-Taylor includes the church in his list of 'best' English parish churches.

The Battle of Worcester took place on 3 September 1651 at Worcester, England. It was the final battle of the English Civil War. Oliver Cromwell's Parliamentary New Model Army, 28,000 strong, defeated King Charles II's 16,000 Royalists, of whom the vast majority were Scottish.The Royalist forces took up defensive positions in and around the city of Worcester. The area of the battle was bisected by the River Severn, with the River Teme forming an additional obstacle to the south-west of Worcester. Cromwell divided his army into two main sections, divided by the Severn, in order to attack from both the east and south-west. There was fierce fighting at river crossing points and two dangerous sorties by the Royalists against the eastern Parliamentary force were beaten back. Following the storming of a major redoubt to the east of the city, the Parliamentarians entered Worcester and organised Royalist resistance collapsed. Charles II was able to escape capture.

The Museum of Royal Worcester (formerly Worcester Porcelain Museum and Dyson Perrins Museum) is a ceramics museum located in the Royal Worcester porcelain factory's former site in Worcester, England.

Huntingdon Hall is a Grade II* listed theatre and concert venue located in Worcester, England. It was built in 1804 as the Countess of Huntingdon's Church. In his book Worcestershire, Nikolaus Pevsner describes Huntingdon Hall as "an odd plan... a three-bay chapel with a hipped roof and behind it, transversely, a large oblong part apsed at both ends."