100 YEARS AGO:

WILLIAM Nicklin, aged 16, of 4 Pitchcroft Lane, and Sidney Glazzard (17) of Lyttelton Street, errand boys, were summonsed at Worcester Police Court for bathing in the Severn from Pitchcroft. PC Claxton proved the case and said the boys were bathing 400 or 500 yards from the bathing barge. The boys said the place had been a bathing spot for years. They were discharged with a caution, which the magistrates hoped others would take note of.

150 YEARS AGO:

HENRY Williams, costermonger living in St Clements, Worcester, was summonsed at the police court on the information of Mr Lewis, inspector of nuisances, for having kept pigs in his yard to the annoyance of his neighbours. Mr Lewis said the effluvia from the place where the pigs were kept became very disagreeable to the neighbours, so much so that he issued a notice requiring the removal of the animals, in spite of which they were kept in the same place. Williams told the court that the offending porkers had been sold last Thursday and would therefore cause no more annoyance. The case was dismissed on Williams undertaking that there should be no more cause for complaint.

200 YEARS AGO:

RED Hill on the Pershore Road near Worcester. It being very desirable to lower and improve the dangerous part of the public road leading from Worcester to London, surveys and estimates have been made for that purpose and to make the same complete, so as to render the ascent easy and commodious for all carriages and the heaviest laden waggons. The sum of £300 and upwards will be wanted to attain so desirable an objective, therefore a public subscription has been proposed and entered into to promote the work and raise the requisite amount.

Subscribers so far are Richard Berkeley, 15 guineas; Messrs Haynes and Co, coach proprietors, £21 and Samuel Brampton and other proprietors of houses adjoining the road, £105.

250 YEARS AGO:

WENT away from his master, John Bury of Oakhampton, in the parish of Astley, in February last and hath not been heard of since, John Hay, a young lad of 15 years of age, with short, sandy hair, a freckled face, and is scorched by a burn on the back part of his head and under his chin quite down to his bosom. He took with him a smock frock, a dark cinnamoncoloured linsey coat and an old pair of buckskin breeches. Whoever will give intelligence of him, or bring him to John Mund at Ombersley shall receive any reasonable satisfaction.

􀁥 A quarterly meeting of the governors of Worcester Infirmary will be held at their house in Silver Street on Wednesday next at 10 o’clock in the morning.

300 YEARS AGO:

LAST Saturday a pickpocket taken the day before at Pitchcroft was committed to our castle at Worcester, as were, on Sunday night, two highwaymen taken in this city by a Welshman, who pursued them out of Wales, having been robbed by them of 40shillings. Their geldings, which are secured, are valued at 20 guineas each.