Noake's Worcestershire Page 346

346 TENBURY.

A Rifle Corps (second Worcestershire), numbering ninety men, under the command of Captain Pardoe; Gas Works; a Reading Room and Library, in connection with which lectures are given in the winter; a branch of the Worcester City and County Bank, with which the old Ludlow and Tenbury Bank has amalgamated; a Highway Board, Board of Guardians, and Petty Sessions, of all of which Lord Northwick is chairman; schools, one of which has a small endowment; and the other usual institutions of small towns exist here. The population of the parish is about 2,000, and among the gentry in the neighbourhood are Lord Northwick, Burford House; Mrs. Bailey, Easton Court; E. V. Wheeler, Esq., Kyrewood House; Colonel Hill, Court-of-Hill; Mrs. Prescott, Kyre House; R. Prescott Decie, Esq., Bockleton Court; G. Wallace, Esq., Eardiston House; Rev. Sir F. A. Gore Ouseley, Bart., St. Michael's College; E. J. Williams, Esq., Rochford House; and G. Pardoe, Esq., Nash Court. There are four hamlets in the parish, viz., 1, the town; 2, the foreign; 3, Sutton ; 4, Berrington; and there are three manors: 1, the town and foreign; 2, Sutton; 3, Berrington. The river Teme divides Worcestershire from Salop, and often floods the borders of both counties. There is a picturesque bridge over the river, which is near here joined by the Kyre. The neighbourhood is famous for its cider and perry. It is proverbial in Worcestershire that "you never hear the cuckoo before Tenbury fair (April 20), or after Pershore fair" (June 26).

In 1808 William Reynolds was ordered to stand in the pillory at Tenbury for an assault on a female, and in 1818 William Corfield was hung at Worcester for a burglary at the house of G. Jukes.