Newsletter – February 2016

February 3rd, 2016 by JCope

What did the Romans ever do for us? This was the question at the heart of our presentation this month, ‘The Romans in Worcestershire’ by Paul Harding from the ‘Discover History’ team. After the invasion of Britain in AD 43 it took the Romans a further five years before they made it to rural Worcestershire. It is assumed that they had to subdue aggressive resistance from the Britons in the South before venturing into the interior. By which time, the local population must have seen what was coming and decided that it was better to assimilate and trade and become Romano-Britons than to resist. There is no evidence of any large scale battles in this area even though there are Iron Age hill forts in the region which would have been potential centres of resistance.

What attracted the Romans to come here? There were three basic staples in the locality. Salt from Droitwich, Iron mined in the Wyre Forest and best quality wool from sheep on the consistently wet and lush British pasturelands. These were shipped via the river Severn at Worcester throughout the Empire. Hagley is close to the Roman Road running from Droitwich to Chester and we have evidence from local finds that Roman culture made it here. After all the Romans occupied Britain for nearly 300 years which is time enough to find Hagley, even by accident.

Our next meeting is on Tuesday 5th April when we will have a presentation by Jill Nicklin entitled ‘Costumes and Cultures of South West China’. Jill is an art historian who has travelled extensively in Africa, South America and in the Far East examining art and culture in Southern India and China. Visitors are most welcome at all our events – see hhfs.org.uk for details and contacts.

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