Hanbury is a rural village in Worcestershire, England near Droitwich Spa and the M5 motorway. The population of Hanbury has remained around 1,000 since the early 19th century, and apart from farming and the popular Jinney Ring Craft Centre there is little economic activity, as the parish is lived in mainly by those who commute to the nearby towns of Bromsgrove, Redditch, Droitwich and Worcester, and the slightly more distant areas of Birmingham and the Black Country.
History
Pre-history
Although some flint tools of indeterminate date have been found in the parish the main feature surviving from prehistory is the Iron Age hill fort on Church Hill. Remains of the embankments and ditch are well preserved on the north side of the hill, and are more faintly discernible on the south and east side. Most of the hill top area has been used as a burial ground from earliest Christian times, but in an area outside the burial ground a trial excavation was conducted a few years ago by the Worcestershire Archeology Service, and clear signs of iron-age settlement were found. That occupation on the hill top continued through the Roman period is shown by the discovery of Roman coins, and it can be conjectured that in the 4th century AD, when the Roman Empire converted to Christianity, a church was first built here.
Roman period and Dark Ages
Hanbury was extensively farmed during the Roman period. Work led by Christopher Dyer has shown that most of the parish was cultivated during this period, and that perhaps 60 farms existed, as shown by finds of Roman pottery. Hanbury is only a few miles from the important salt producing centre of Droitwich (Roman Salinae) and an important Roman road ran east west through the parish leading from Droitwich to Alcester and the ford over the Avon at Stratford. A modern road follows the same line except for a stretch through the middle of the parish where the route was later interrupted by an enclosed hunting park.
Hanbury Monastery
A copy of a charter from 660 AD exists which refers to the "minster" at Hanbury, which shows that Christian worship has taken place on Church Hill from at least that date. There is no evidence a church may have existed continuously since the first church in the 4th century, however there remains the possibility it was part of the town fortified by the Britons (Proto-Welsh) about 400 prior to English occupation.[3]. The present church incorporates Norman work, with many later additions.
A few documents refer to a monastic establishment in this period. A grant of 50 'manses' was made to an Abbot Colmannus in 675 by the King of Mercia in his will. A further text from 836, details a later King of Mercia, Wiglaf, making further grants to the monastery in Hanbury. It was merged into the church of Worcester.
Middle Ages
At some time under the kings of Mercia an area in the centre of the parish was enclosed for use as a royal hunting park, known as Feckenham Park, and this certainly existed by the time of Domesday, when indeed all the parish was regarded as in the Royal Forest of Feckenham. However, in 1301 the area of the Forest was reduced, and from that time till dissaforestation in 1629 only that part of the parish lying to the east of Church Hill was in the Forest. Gallows Green, to the west of Hanbury on the Salt Way was the site of executions for forest law offences.
Throughout the Middle Ages the manor of Hanbury belonged to the Bishop of Worcester, and in the early part of the period there was a manor house near the church, but by 1301 this had disappeared. There were also subsidiary manors, including an important one at Temple Broughton which, as its name implies, once belonged to the Knights Templar, and the area known as Holloway, later Hollowfields, in the south-east of the parish, was granted to the Monks at the nearby Bordesley Abbey.
Since the Middle Ages
In 1559 the manor was transferred from the Bishop to the Crown, then in 1590 it was granted to Sir Thomas and Lady Elizabeth Leighton – she was a relation of the Queen.
Forest law was increasingly unenforced through the 14-1500s. Large numbers of people took to using the forest as a common, many of whom had little legal title, as they were not tenants. Because of the lack of other industries in the area, the forest and common was an important means of sustenance for a large number of the growing population.