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A Descriptive History of the Town of Evesham, From the Foundation of Its Saxon Monastery, With Notices Respecting the Ancient Deanery of Its Vale
A Descriptive History of the Town of Evesham From the Foundation of Its Saxon Monastery With Notices Respecting the Ancient Deanery of Its Vale Author:George May General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1845 Original Publisher: G. May Subjects: Evesham (England) Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Boo... more »ks.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER I. SITUATION OF EVESHAM, AND ORIGIN OF ITS NAME. VESHAM is seated in the bosom of tin' vale that sweeps from the bases of the Cotteswold Hills on the east and south, and is guarded at the west by Bredon Hill. Geologically considered, it stands upon a lias plain at the foot of an oolitic range; and thus its vicinage -- as students of the science prove -- must once have been a vast abyss sunk in primeval ocean, the muddy floor of which is now blue clay, retaining in its bed the fossilized remains of animals, insects, and vegetables, that lived and flourished in the earliest ages of our world. The town, of which we are to write, is situated upon a peninsula formed by the Avon, at the south-eastern part of Worcestershire, bordering upon the counties of Warwick and Gloucester. It is within the hundred of Blakenhurste; a name, which from its Saxon compounds, may be considered equivalent to Black Forett. The hundred was originally called that of Fisseberge, being so recorded in Domesday book. Bp. Thomas supposes the latter name to have originated in the legend connected with the founder of the monastery, which asserts that a key thrown by him into the Avon, here, was found in the stomach of a fish, at Rome. When the name was altered does not appear: but Henry I. gave to the abbey a charter conferring jurisdiction over the hundred of Blakenhurste ; the sealof which having been broken, a grant was made in the 25th of Henry III. importing that the seal should be as effectual though cracked, as if it were remaining whole.1 The town stands upon the...« less