Place:Powick, Worcestershire, England

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Powick is a village in Worcestershire, England, located two miles south of the city of Worcester and four miles north of Great Malvern, close to the River Teme. It is a civil parish of the Malvern Hills District, and it includes the village of Callow End and the hamlets of Bastonford, Clevelode, Collett's Green, and Deblins Green.

Powick lies on the A449 and has two bridges across the River Teme, one ancient and one modern.

A mile from the village towards Malvern was the site of the Victorian complex of the county psychiatric hospital, generally referred to as Powick Hospital. Built in 1852, the hospital finally closed in 1989 and was mostly demolished shortly thereafter. Before he became one of England's famous composers, in 1879 at the age of 22, Edward Elgar was appointed bandmaster of the asylum until about 1886, and wrote compositions for the asylum's band.

Powick Old Bridge

The old bridge across the Teme at Powick is late mediaeval with 17th-century alterations, built of sandstone with brick parapets. It is a grade I listed structure.

In 1642 the bridge was the scene of one of the very first skirmishes between Royalist and Parliamentarian soldiers in the English Civil War in what became known as the Battle of Powick Bridge. It was a short, sharp, but decisive cavalry engagement that resulted in a victory for the Royalists and showed the Parliamentarian cavalry their shortcomings, setting the tone for the early stages of the conflict. A long ballad gives a surprisingly detailed account of the battle.

The more famous Battle of Worcester later on in the war, in 1651, was fought in part in much the same locality close to the River Teme, when the two northern-piers of the bridge were destroyed by the Royalists. The church in Powick village was used by the Royalists as a lookout point as it commanded elevated views over the surrounding countryside and the bridge and its approaches. Its tower has a lot of pockmarks from small bore cannon balls which were fired by Parliamentarian gunners to deter the Scottish Royalist forces using the tower. They extend up the south face of the tower from as low as head height up to the top.

Powick Mill -- A Victorian power station

A former water mill, next to Powick Bridge, was converted in 1894 to become the world's first combined steam/hydro electric power station. Electricity from this provided about half the city of Worcester's needs. The Powick site continued generating until the 1950s. When it closed, it was converted into a laundry and has since been converted into residential apartments.

The site was chosen as a mill site from at least the 11th century, and very probably earlier than that. The mill leat was dug in 1291. A succession of water mills replaced each other throughout the Middle Ages and into the 16th century and later.

end of Wikipedia contribution

From 1894 until 1974 it was a parish in the Upton-upon-Severn Rural District. Since 1974 it has been part of the Malvern Hills District, first in the county of Hereford and Worcester, and then, since 1998, in Worcestershire again.

There is a sketchmap of the parishes of Upton-upon-Severn Rural District on the rural district page.

• Ordnance Survey Maps of England and Wales - Revised: Worcestershire illustrates the parish boundaries of Worcestershire when rural districts were still in existence and before the West Midlands came into being. The map publication year is 1931. The map blows up to show all the parishes and many of the small villages and hamlets. Maps in this series are now downloadable for personal use.
• British History Online has a large collection of local maps from the Ordnance Survey 1883-1893. These blow up to a size that permits viewing of individual hamlets, farms, collieries, but there is no overlapping of one map to the next, and no overall map to tie the individual ones together.
• British History Online also has three volumes of the Victoria County History of Worcestershire online. Volume 3 (published in 1913) deals with the Halfshire Hundred; Volume 4 (published in 1924) deals with the City of Worcester, as well as parishes in the hundreds of Pershore and Doddingtree. Volume 2 covers religious houses in the county. The remainder of the county is not represented in the British History Online series.
• GENUKI makes a great many suggestions as to other websites with worthwhile information about Worcestershire as well as leading to a collection of 19th century descriptions of each of the ecclesiastical parishes.
• The FamilySearch Wiki provides a similar information service to GENUKI which may be more up-to-date. An index of parishes leads to notes and references for each parish. The auxiliary website English Jurisdictions can also be helpful.
• Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service, The Hive, Sawmill Walk, The Butts, Worcester WR1 3PD (Telephone: 01905 822866, e-mail: archive@worcestershire.gov.uk) The Archives Collections Catalog Summary outlines the contents of the Archives Collection and also notes on what has been transferred to the national online service Access to Archives
• The Birmingham & Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry has a branch in Bromsgrove which deals in Worcestershire family history. There are also branches at Stourbridge and Worcester.
• The Midlands Historical Data project produces searchable facsimile copies of old local history books and directories of interest to genealogists. It specialises in the three counties of Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Staffordshire, working closely with libraries, archives and family history societies in the area. Digital images are made freely available to participating organisations to improve public access. Free search index on its web-site to all its books. In many cases payment will be required to see the extract.
• A Vision of Britain through Time has

1. organization charts of the hierarchies of parishes within hundreds, registration districts and rural and urban districts of the 20th century
2. excerpts from a gazetteer of circa 1870 outlining individual towns and parishes
3. reviews of population through the time period 1800-1960

• Brett Langston's list of Worcestershire Registration Districts and parishes within each registration district from 1837 to the present can indicate where to find details of civil registration entries since the process began in England.
• More local sources can often be found by referring to "What Links Here" in the column on the left.

• A History of the County of Worcester: Volume 4 edited by William Page and J W Willis-Bund covers the city of Worcester, as well as parishes in the hundreds of Pershore and Doddingtree, in the south and west of the county. These include the towns of Pershore, Great Malvern and Hanley Castle. (Victoria County History - Worcestershire. Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1924, and available free online from British History Online)