During the Industrial Revolution the north of the county was part of the Black Country, a major manufacturing centre, Kidderminster became famous for carpet production, and Worcester for porcelain.

After the Norman conquest of England; the Domesday Book noted in 1086 that in seven of the twelve hundreds covering Worcestershire, the Crown had no authority.

The first Norman Sheriff Urse d'Abetot, built the castle of Worcester and seized much church land, some of which became part of the Crown's hundreds in Worcestershire.

[18] The massacre in Worcester was part of a wider campaign by the De Montforts and their allies in the run-up to the Second Barons' War, aimed at undermining Henry III.

[note 1] A few years later, in 1275, the Jews that were still living in Worcester were forced to move to Hereford,[18] as they were expelled from all towns under the jurisdiction of the queen mother.

Mettis Aerospace are in Enfield, north Redditch, and make light metal components ( former High Duty Alloys, which made most of the forged pistons for Britain's aircraft engines in WWII).

Phoenix Group (non-public life assurance schemes) is in the north-east of the county near the Warwickshire boundary, at Wythall, and has a large turnover; nearby to west Metalrax, headquartered in Alvechurch, make (via subsidiaries) most of the bakeware sold in the UK.

Mazak UK have the parent company's European manufacturing facility (for CNC machine tools) in the north of Worcester.

Liquid crystal displays were developed in 1972 in conjunction with the Royal Radar Establishment, where Geoffrey Dummer invented the idea of the integrated circuit in 1952.

It was based in Malvern, and became the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment, which developed thermal imaging and pyroelectric infrared detectors, and is now a large site owned by QinetiQ.

[24] Herefordshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Shropshire had their own exclaves within the main part of Worcestershire at Rochford,[25] Broome,[26] Clent,[27] Tardebigge (Tutnall and Cobley)[28] and Halesowen respectively.

[31] Birmingham's continuous expansion has been a major cause of Worcestershire's fluid boundary changes and associated housing issues.

Dudley's historical status within the Diocese of Worcester and through its aristocratic links ensured that the exclave was governed on a largely autonomous basis.

[36] During the Local Government reorganisation of April 1966, Dudley expanded beyond its historical boundaries and took in the bulk of Sedgley,[37] Brierley Hill and the south of Coseley as well as a small section of Amblecote.

[39] During this reorganisation, the area of the administrative county grew only where Stourbridge took in the majority of Amblecote Urban District[40] from Staffordshire and the designation of Redditch in 1964 as a New Town.

The Redditch New Town designation coincided with a considerable programme of social and private house building in Droitwich, Worcester, Bromsgrove, Kidderminster and along the Birmingham boundary at Frankley, Rubery and Rednal.

However, when the club next won the Conference title six years later, their stadium had been upgraded and promotion was granted, giving the county its first (and thus far only) Football League members.

[52] Formed officially in 1865, the Club initially played in Boughton Park, before moving to its current New Road ground, which today can host 5,500 spectators, in 1895.

It is claimed that the county was the inspiration for the Shire, a region of J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional Middle-earth, described in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Tolkien was thought to have named Bilbo Baggins' house "Bag End" after his Aunt Jane's Worcestershire farm.

[58][59] Lying close to the county's north western border is the Woofferton Transmitting Station,[60] which was used during the Cold War to broadcast the Voice of America's Short Wave transmissions into the Eastern Bloc countries of Europe.

In 1939, the BBC bought the historic Wood Norton site near Evesham, and equipped the premises with a dozen temporary studios.

[61] The BBC monitoring service were also based at Wood Norton, where linguists, many of them foreign nationals, were hired to listen in to broadcasts from Europe until they were relocated to Caversham Park in early 1943.

The move was made to release space at Wood Norton so that it could become the BBC's main broadcasting centre, should London have to be evacuated because of the threat from Nazi Germany's V-weapons.

MuxCo eventually launched in December 2013 following changes in legislation through the Digital Economy Act 2010,[72] and utilises existing transmitter locations at Great Malvern, Ridge Hill and Bromsgrove.

[73] The multiplex continues to uses the same transmission sites, albeit with an additional transmitter at Kidderminster[74] and broadcasts a combination of local and national services.

[76] Ofcom has earmarked two potential 'Small Scale DAB' digital radio multiplexes within Worcestershire[77] - one at Worcester, and the other within Bromsgrove, Kidderminster and Redditch.

[79] This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of Worcestershire at current basic prices published (pp.

During the latter half of the 20th century, this has largely declined with the exception southern area of the county around the Vale of Evesham, where orchards are still worked on a commercial scale.

There are also several market towns: Malvern, Bewdley, Evesham, Droitwich Spa, Pershore, Tenbury Wells, Stourport-on-Severn and Upton-upon-Severn.