Powick
Encyclopedia
Powick is a Worcestershire
Worcestershire
Worcestershire is a non-metropolitan county, established in antiquity, located in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the "Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire" NUTS 2 region...

 village two miles south of the city of Worcester
Worcester
The City of Worcester, commonly known as Worcester, , is a city and county town of Worcestershire in the West Midlands of England. Worcester is situated some southwest of Birmingham and north of Gloucester, and has an approximate population of 94,000 people. The River Severn runs through the...

 and four miles north of Great Malvern
Great Malvern
Great Malvern is an area of Malvern, Worcestershire, England. It is the historical centre of the town, and the location of the headquarters buildings of the of Malvern Town Council, the governing body of the Malvern civil parish, and Malvern Hills District council of the county of...

, close to the River Teme
River Teme
The River Teme rises in Mid Wales, south of Newtown in Powys, and flows through Knighton where it crosses the border into England down to Ludlow in Shropshire, then to the north of Tenbury Wells on the Shropshire/Worcestershire border there, on its way to join the River Severn south of Worcester...

. It is a civil parish
Civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a territorial designation and, where they are found, the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties...

 of the Malvern Hills District
Malvern Hills (district)
Malvern Hills is a local government district in Worcestershire, England. Its council is based in the town of Malvern, and its area covers most of the western half of the county that borders Herefordshire. It was originally formed in 1974 and was subject to a significant boundary reform in 1998...

, and it includes the village of Callow End and the hamlets of Bastonford, Clevelode, Colletts Green, and Deblins Green.

Powick lies on the A449 and has two bridges across the River Teme, one ancient and one modern. The village contains a primary school.

Powick Hospital

A mile from the village towards Malvern
Malvern, Worcestershire
Malvern is a town and civil parish in Worcestershire, England, governed by Malvern Town Council. As of the 2001 census it has a population of 28,749, and includes the historical settlement and commercial centre of Great Malvern on the steep eastern flank of the Malvern Hills, and the former...

 was the site of the Victorian complex of the county psychiatric hospital, generally referred to as Powick Hospital
Powick Hospital
Powick Hospital was a psychiatric facility located on outside the village of Powick, Worcestershire. Founded in 1847 as the Worcester County Pauper and Lunatic Asylum, it was designed by architects John R. Hamilton & James Medland of Gloucester and opened in August 1852...

. The hospital was notorious for its use of LSD in therapy and mistreatment of patients. Built in 1852, the hospital finally closed in 1989 and was mostly demolished shortly thereafter. The name Powick entered the local colloquialisms and became synonymous for mental disorder in many informal expressions relating to madness or stupidity.

Before he became England's most famous composer, in 1879 at the age of 22 Edward Elgar
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...

 was appointed bandmaster of the asylum until about 1886, and wrote compositions for the asylum's band.

English Civil War

The old bridge across the Teme at Powick was the scene of one of the very first skirmishes between Royalist and Parliamentarian soldiers in the English Civil War
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...

 in 1642 in what became known as the Battle of Powick Bridge
Battle of Powick Bridge
The Battle of Powick Bridge, fought on 23 September 1642, was the first major cavalry engagement of the English Civil War and it was a victory for the Royalists who overthrew the Parliamentary cavalry. According to Hugh Peters it was "where England's sorrows began".-Prelude:King Charles I of...

. 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
Battle of Worcester
The Battle of Worcester took place on 3 September 1651 at Worcester, England and was the final battle of the English Civil War. Oliver Cromwell and the Parliamentarians defeated the Royalist, predominantly Scottish, forces of King Charles II...

 later on in the war, in 1651, was fought in part in much the same locality close to the River Teme. 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.

Victorian power station

A former water mill, adjacent to Powick Bridge, was converted in 1894 to become the world's first combined steam/hydro electric power station
Power station
A power station is an industrial facility for the generation of electric energy....

. Electricity
Electricity
Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...

 from this provided about half the city of Worcester
Worcester
The City of Worcester, commonly known as Worcester, , is a city and county town of Worcestershire in the West Midlands of England. Worcester is situated some southwest of Birmingham and north of Gloucester, and has an approximate population of 94,000 people. The River Severn runs through the...

's needs. The Powick site continued generating until the 1950s. In its turn, when it closed, it was converted firstly into a laundry and has again been converted into smart 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
Leat
A leat is the name, common in the south and west of England and in Wales, for an artificial watercourse or aqueduct dug into the ground, especially one supplying water to a watermill or its mill pond...

 was dug in 1291. A succession of water mills replaced each other throughout the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

and into the 16th century and later.

External links

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