Worcestershire is a county of wide, fertile valleys, drained by the Severn, the Avon, the Teme and the Stour and ringed by some of England’s best-known hills, including the Malverns and the Cotswolds.

This concise but comprehensive account is based on a wealth of published and unpublished research. It is both highly readable and well illustrated, and will interest the general reader, students and local groups seeking to put their own work within a wider perspective. Particular attention is given to the settlement of the county, especially to its colonisation by the Hwicce in the sixth and seventh centuries. There are fascinating insights into the lives of ordinary people through the ages, based on records such as medieval monastic estate records and later probate inventories. Throughout, local happenings are related to national trends, and dramatic events such as the Battle of Evesham of 1265 and the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 are highlighted.

Contrasts between rural and urban areas are explored, and products such as the carpets of Kidderminster, the salt of Droitwich and the glass of Stourbridge are seen within a wider economic context. Information on important individuals is also examined, some of whom, such as Edward Elgar and the poet Piers Plowman, are already well known, while others emerge from local records for the first time. This book reaches right up to the 1990s, including the triumphs of Worcestershire County Cricket Club and the day-to-day concerns of the Archers in the final chapter.