Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Worcester (1.)

WORCESTER, a midland county of England, of a very irregular shape, and of curious arrangement. Some of its parishes are detached from the county, while portions of other counties extend within its boundaries. It is bounded on the N. by Staffordshire, E. by Warwickshire, S. by Gloucestershire, W. by Herefordshire, and N.W. by Shropshire. The greatest length from north to south is 34 miles, and its breadth 30 miles. The area is 472,453 acres, or about 738 square miles.

Surface and Geology.—The surface consists of very fine and picturesque hills and well-watered and fruitful valleys, and the county is certainly one of the fairest and most picturesque in England. Its finest hills are the well-known Malvern Hills on its south-west border, the Abberley Hills running north from them, the Lickey and Clent Hills in the east, and in the south the Bredon Hills, which are a continuation of the Cotswolds. The principal rivers are the Severn, which is navigable, and runs through the county from north to south; the Stour, which joins the Severn at Stourport; the Teme, which enters the county at Tenbury, receives the Kyre and the Leigh, and falls into the Severn below Worcester; and the Warwickshire Avon, which joins the Severn at Tewkesbury. The valley of the Severn is appropriately named the Vale of Worcester, and that of the Avon the Vale of Evesham,—the latter being generally considered one of the loveliest valleys in England. The rivers are well stocked with fish,—salmon, trout, grayling, shad, and lampreys being found in most of them.

The chief geological formation of the county is the Triassic, and a line running north and south through the Malvern Hills and the Forest of Wyre coalfield would divide the hard and ancient Palæozoic strata from the softer and more recent Mesozoic. Black shales, of about 1000 feet thick, rest upon the Hollybush sandstone near Bransill Castle; and the Silurian formation extends west of the Malverns as far as Abberley. The sandstone known as May Hill exists in the south-west, reaching the Herefordshire Beacon; fossils are often found in it. To the west of Raggedston and Midsummer Hills the Cambrian formation extends; this also is fairly rich in fossils. There is but little of the Old Red Sandstone in the county, but the Carboniferous formation extends from the Forest of Wyre coalfield to the Abberley Hills, and from Bewdley to the western limits of the county. The Permian formation is found near Hartley, Abberley, Bewdley, and the Clent Hills, while red marls and sandstones of the Triassic period constitute about three-fourths of the county. At Droitwich and in the Vale of Evesham limestones and a bluish clay exist; and in the gravels deposited by the Severn and the Avon the remains of extinct mammals have been found.