Worcester's early importance is partly due to its position on trade routes, but also because it was a centre of Church learning and wealth, due to the very large possessions of the See and Priory accumulated in the Anglo-Saxon period. After the reformation, Worcester continued as a centre of learning, with two early grammar schools with strong links to Oxford University.
The city was often important for strategic military reasons, being close to Gloucester and Oxford as well as Wales, which led to a number of attacks and sieges in the conflicts of the early medieval period. For similar reasons, it was valuable to the crown during the English Civil War.
The city was a centre of the cloth trade, and later of glove production. It had a number of foundries and made machine tools for the car industry.
In politics, Worcester often lagged behind other similar cities in municipal reform, and in the nineteenth and start of the twentieth century, retained corrupt electoral practices in Westminster elections long after gifts and bribes had been made unlawful.
Early history
The trade route which ran past Worcester, later forming part of the Roman Ryknild Street, dates to Neolithic times. The position commanded a ford over the River Severn (the river was tidal past Worcester prior to public works projects in the 1840s) and was fortified by the Britons around 400 BC. It would have been on the northern border of the Dobunni and probably subject to the larger communities of the Malvern hillforts.
Romano-British
During the Roman period Worcester emerged as an important settlement on the River Severn, connected by river to the forts at Gloucester and Wroxeter and by road to the small towns and industrial centres of Alcester, Droitwich, and Kenchester. Finds of coins and military equipment suggest that the site originated as a fort in the Julio-Claudian or Neronian period, which may have been located on or near the site of the medieval cathedral. By the late 1st century the settlement developed into a small town, which may have been called 'Vertis', a name first mentioned in the 7th-century Ravenna Cosmography. The small town at Worcester can probably be identified with 'Cair Guiragon', which is listed among the 28 Cities of Britain in the History of the Britons attributed to Nennius.
The core of the Roman settlement lay on the high ground around Worcester Cathedral, and was surrounded by a large earthwork rampart and ditch, which was first identified in the 1950s at Little Fish Street. Traces of the east side of the ditch were recorded along Lich Street by Philip Barker, and probably continued as far as the southern end of the medieval castle bailey, enclosing an area of c.10 ha. The rampart had at least two gates on its north and east sides, although their exact locations have not been confirmed by excavation. Extramural settlement has been identified during excavations at Castle Street, Deansway, and Sidbury, and is thought to represent the city's northern and eastern suburbs. The full extent of the Roman small town was much larger than the later medieval city, and probably covered an area of c.70-95 ha or more.
While most buildings in the Roman small town were made of timber, the presence of more substantial romanised buildings are indicated by finds of tesserae, flue tiles, painted wall plaster, and architectural stonework, including the remains of a limestone column found at The Butts.
Roman Worcester was a significant industrial centre, and played a key role in the early West Midlands iron industry. The ore smelted at Worcester was probably shipped up the River Severn from the Forest of Dean, where extraction took place between the late 1st and mid-4th centuries. Glass was also produced in Worcester during the 3rd century. The small town was an important distribution centre for goods produced elsewhere, including salt from Droitwich and cattle from the Lake District, Wales, and Northern Scotland.
Most of the inhabitants of Roman Worcester were pagans, and the worship of Vulcan and Venus is suggested by excavated finds from Blackfriars, Castle Street, and The Hive. The discovery of a 4th-century bronze 'Chi-Rho' at Lychgate may reflect a Christian presence in the late Roman period. The two medieval churches of St Alban's and St Helen's, both of which are sited on the edge of Worcester's Roman rampart, have unusual dedications to early Christian saints, and could have originated in the late Roman or early post-Roman periods.