Abbots Morton

Abbots Morton is a village and civil parish in the Wychavon district, in the county of Worcestershire, England.

The village was the country retreat for the Abbots of Evesham Abbey and the moat that surrounded their house is still visible.

[3] The Domesday Book of 1086 lists Abbots Morton as "Mortune", assessed at 5 hides and belonging to Evesham Abbey, but the settlement is believed to have been established several hundred years earlier.

After 200 years, the dispute was settled in the middle of the 13th century when the abbey was given jurisdiction over all the churches within the Vale apart from one: Abbots Morton.

[3] After the Dissolution, Abbots Morton passed into the hands of the Hoby [Hobby] family, who acquired many of the properties originally belonging to Evesham Abbey.

In 1600 ownership of the manor appears to have been disputed: documents held at the Worcestershire Records Office include "Letters Patent of Elizabeth I being a licence for alienation from Richard Hobby [Hoby], esquire, to Richard Mottershed, gent., and Ralph Hodges of the manors of Badsey and Abbots Morton" while the Records of the Kings Remembrancer in the National Archives show "Philip Kighley of Broadway, gentleman to Thomas Edgeok of Broadway, gentleman: Demise, indented, for 3 years, of the manors of Badsey and Abbots Morton,".

After Philip's death at the beginning of the 17th century, Elizabeth married Charles Ketilby who sold the manor a few years later.

[3] By the beginning of the 18th century, much of the land around Abbots Morton appears to have been acquired by the Throckmorton family of Coughton Court.

[3] The church houses the WW1 war memorial to the village's only casualty of the conflict, Private Philip Collins, who served with the local Worcestershire Regiment in Mesopotamia.

However it is known that Private 19934 Cecil Roy Pulham of the Machine Gun Corps was born in Abbots Morton in Oct 1895 but moved away and by 1901 was living in Arrow.

The south doorway, now the only entrance to the church, was constructed during the 15th century, and two pews from this period are incorporated into the porch.