Bengeworth
| Bengeworth | |
| Worcestershire | |
|---|---|
| |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SP045430 |
| Location: | 52°4’60"N, 1°55’60"W |
| Data | |
| Post town: | Evesham |
| Postcode: | WR11 |
| Dialling code: | 01386 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Wychavon |
Bengeworth is a village which has become a suburb of Evesham in Worcestershire. It stands outside the loop of the River Avon in which Evesham town stands. It is in the county's Oswaldslow Hundred.
In 1887 Bengeworth had a population of 1,311.[1]
The original village is centred on the Church of England church, St Peter's.[2]
History
Before the Norman Conquest of 1066, Bengeworth was amongst the lands owned by Evesham Abbey and the Bishop of Worcester.[3] Due to prompt intercession by the abbot, Evesham Abbey was not reduced by William the Conqueror. By 1086, Evesham Abbey owned the entirety of Bengeworth (appearing in the Domesday Books once, as Beningeorde. It was a larger than average hamlet whose inhabitants were a mixture of free, serf and slave.[3][4] Beningwyrde is another early spelling used in the Worcester Survey, a land survey undertaken in Worcestershire sometime between 1108 and 1118.
Wulfstan II of Worcester, the last surviving pre-Conquest bishop, held the office in 1086 according to the Domesday Book. When Walter de Beauchamp built a castle in Bengeworth on the north end of the bridge to Evesham, conflict with the Abbot of Evesham escalated. Following his attack upon Evesham, Beauchamp was excommunicated and his Bengeworth castle destroyed.[5] His descendant William Beauchamp of Elmley was said to have withdrawn his part of Bengeworth from the bishop's hundred about the middle of the 13th century, and in 1280 all of Bengeworth was in Blackenhurst hundred.[6]
The Bishops of Worcester continued to exert sac and soc over Bengeworth and other communities in Oswaldslow Hundred until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century, six to eight centuries of ecclesiastical rule.
The lordship of Bengeworth was retained by a series of families from 1535 onward through the Victorian era.[7] Rebecca Rushout (née Bowles), Lady Northwick, held the manor in 1810.[7]
The 1605 charter of the Borough of Evesham added the Parish of Bengeworth within its boundary, superseding the initial 1604 borough charter which had encompassed the parishes of All Saints and St. Lawrence. Over the next two centuries, the population of Bengeworth expanded to the north and east, while Evesham expanded to the north and west.[8]
After the Civil War, five Parliamentarian soldiers who participated in the horror of the war became convinced of the pacifist theology of the Society of Friends, and met for religious meetings in 1655 at the home of Thomas Cartwright in Bengeworth.[9] Their beliefs greatly disturbed the mainstream religious and secular authorities, which caused their persecution.[9]
The mediæval Anglican church was demolished in 1870. It was replaced by Bengeworth St Peter, a large church designed in the Gothic Decorated style by Thomas Denville Barry and his son Charles Garret Barry, of the firm T. D. Barry and Sons of Liverpool, and built between 1870/72.[10][11] The architect John Henry Price first articled at their firm 1884–1888. William Blews & Sons of New Bartholomew Street, Birmingham, cast the church bells.[12]
The Bengeworth Post Office was forced to close, which led to protests in 2008.[13]
Railways
Bengeworth railway station on the Gloucester Loop Line on the Midland Railway between Ashchurch and Evesham. Bengeworth railway station was not in Bengeworth, but rather was the station in the centre in the nearby village of Hampton. The railway station was called 'Bengeworth' as that was considered a distinctive name, while 'Hampton' is a common England village name.
The station opened 1 October 1864.[14] It closed in 1953, but trains continued to use the line until closure in 1963.
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Bengeworth) |
References
- ↑ Bartholomew’s Guide
- ↑ St Peter's, Bengeworth
- ↑ Jump up to: 3.0 3.1 Bengeworth in the Domesday Book
- ↑ [1] Monasticon Anglicanum: A History of the Abbies and Other Monasteries, Hospitals, Frieries, and Cathedral and Collegiate Churches, with Their Dependencies, in England and Wales : Also of All Such Scotch, Irish, and French Monasteries, as Were in Any Manner Connected with Religious Houses in England, Volume 2. March 1849 - 643 pages; page 3. Accessed April 2020.
- ↑ The Victoria History of the County of Worcester, page 398. Accessed April 2020.
- ↑ British History Online: The Hundred of Oswaldslow. Accessed April 2020.
- ↑ Jump up to: 7.0 7.1 The Victoria History of the County of Worcester, pp. 400-402. Accessed April 2020.
- ↑ The Victoria History of the County of Worcester John William Willis Bund, Herbert Arthur Doubleday, William Page; pub. A. Constable, limited, 1906; page 372. Accessed April 2020.
- ↑ Jump up to: 9.0 9.1 Evesham Friends in the olden time, pub. West, Newman & Company, Printers, 1885 - Quakers - 228 pages; page 58. Accessed April 2020.
- ↑ Worcestershire and Dudley Historic Churches Trust: Bengeworth St. Peter, accessed April 2020.
- ↑ Dictionary of Scottish Architects: Thomas Denville Barry, accessed April 2020.
- ↑ YouTube: Bengeworth Bells ringing out on a hot sunny day. publ. 20 June 2017. Accessed April 2020.
- ↑ YouTube: Save Bengeworth Post Office - Part 2. Accessed April 2020.
- ↑ Catford, Nick (28 April 2012). "Bengeworth". http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/b/bengeworth/index.shtml.