During the 20th century three housing estates were built in Welland, all on land that had only been enclosed from Welland Common in the 1850s. (Housing estates in Upper Welland will be covered in another article.)

Marlbank/The Avenue

The first council houses appeared in Welland in the 1920s when six pairs of semi-detached houses were constructed on the A4104 Marlbank Road at the western end of the village (see map). They had no electricity – Welland did not get an electricity supply until the 1930s. Nor were they fitted with running water – each pair of houses had to share a pump.

More council houses and bungalows were built on the land behind these six in the 1930s and post-war years, forming the roads now known as The Avenue, Brookside and Chestnut Close. The estate is roughly triangular, bounded by the Marlbank Brook, the A4104 and the cemetery and Welland House.

A number of tenancy agreements from the 1950s and 60s in the archives at The Hive reveal that the rent for a house in 1952 was 12/- per week. A rent collector called on Mondays. Tenants had to agree to abide by a list of regulations including keeping the property clean and in good order, reporting problems to the council promptly and requesting permission before decorating or putting up a garden shed. One week’s notice was required to quit the property. All these documents still refer to the houses as ’23 Marlbank’, ’27 Marlbank’, etc. At this time Upton Rural District Council owned the properties, which amounted to more than 50 by the 1960s.

Malcolm Brookes and his family lived in one of the original council houses on Marlbank Road, no. 6, now no. 8. His maternal grandparents, John and Ada Stanley, moved into no. 6 when it was built, together with their daughters Florence and Edith. John died not long before Edith married Harold Brookes in July 1927, leaving Ada, Edith and her new husband to share the house. It remained the Brookes family home until 2013. Malcolm has written the following account of life at no. 6. The track between nos. 6 and 7 that he mentions was to become The Avenue later as more houses were built.

As far as I know there were only 12 council houses on Marlbank Road in the mid-1920’s. Garrett Bank can be clearly seen in Edith and Harold’s wedding photo. These six pairs of semi-detached houses had just a rough track to farmland between nos. 6 and 7. The council houses had sizeable gardens and at no. 6 my family grew vegetables and flowers, kept chickens, ducks and pigs and my father, Harold, also kept chickens on an adjacent allotment.

The track (which, in my early days, was known only as the lane) was adopted as an access to more properties, possibly those built in the 1930s. This development was further extended in the 1950’s with yet more semi-detached houses/bungalows.

Again, in the 1970’s, or thereabouts, an ‘in-fill’ pair of semi-detached houses was built by the brook (numbered 1 & 2 Marlbank Road – hence the renumbering of the original houses) and cul-de-sacs of new bungalows were also built in the gardens behind these original council houses. It may well have been at this later time that the lane was signposted as The Avenue although I’m not certain. Obviously, the large gardens were considerably reduced in size to facilitate this last development and it was about this time that these old council owned houses were given a complete renovation.

My three older sisters were born at no. 6 in 1930, 1932 and 1934 and I followed in 1946. I can remember the house with no running water. Water was pumped from a well shared with the adjacent neighbour. The pump froze at times in the winter even though it was lagged.

The house had three bedrooms upstairs and a hall, kitchen and living room downstairs. There was no bathroom. The toilet and coal house were outside in a separate brick building. We had to use a bucket of water from the pump to flush the toilet. it was an extremely cold experience in the winter.

The kitchen had a gloss-painted brickwork interior, lino on the floor and there was a coal-fuelled range cooker/oven with an adjacent coal furnace under a washtub. Usually on a Sunday, when the range was hottest, we used a tin bath filled with hot water in front of the range fire in the kitchen to have a bath. Often, as the youngest child, I was the last to have a bath. On the north side of the kitchen was a larder with a cold stone slab but this was knocked out in the 1950’s. I remember our pig carcasses being hung on hooks up the stairs in the hall to cure.

Originally there was no electricity and the house was lit by oil lamps and candles. A radio was operated by a battery (an accumulator) which was taken to Roberts’s garage on the Gloucester Road, Welland, to be charged. I’m not exactly certain when electricity was put in the houses but there were many power cuts. Water was piped into the houses in the early 1950’s and it made a huge difference. With water plumbed in we had a proper bathroom with a flushing toilet and chain and in the kitchen we had a Burco Boiler for doing the washing and the old range was replaced by an electric cooker. The property was further upgraded over the years and in about 1980 there was a full renovation of these old houses; walls were plastered and the downstairs bathroom was upgraded, central heating was installed and an upstairs toilet was put in.

As life was one of self-dependence in the early days at the house, a large garden was very important to provide vegetables and a food source throughout the year. Welland, of course, did have a bakery (or delivery from Pearce’s of Upton), and I believe there was a butcher’s. The post office moved location a few times, and before the Co-op deliveries, you could buy a jug of milk from Laddie Bishop from Bishop’s Farm (Duckswich Farm, Upton), who delivered milk by horse and cart.

During WW2 the family regularly saw the American soldiers, based at St. Wulstan’s, Upper Welland, passing by and sometimes they would stop and give sweets or gum. My family also housed Land Army girls during the war and one or two kept in touch after the war ended. Sharing bedrooms just had to be accepted during this time.

There are many stories that can be recounted of my family’s lives at this council house over the years but I hope the above is of interest.

Welland Gardens

Welland Gardens, off the B4208 Gloucester Road (see map), consisting of 45 houses and bungalows, was constructed in the 1960s. According to a newspaper advertisement from July 1968, 24 houses were then in the process of being built and prices ranged from £4,350 to £4,650, with central heating as an optional extra.

A further six houses were added at the end of Welland Gardens to form Merryfields in 2001.

Giffard Drive

The 1970 Welland Village Report written by the Worcestershire county planning officer included a map showing the area of fields south of the Marlbank Road as a ‘possible development site’. Giffard Drive, also referred to as Bishop’s Wood Estate, was eventually built in the early 1980s by Bovis (see map). The estate has a variety of detached and semi-detached houses and bungalows numbering more than 100 dwellings in all.

Giffard Drive and the closes leading off it were named after bishops of Worcester to commemorate the fact that for much of its history the manor of Welland was owned by the bishopric. The reasons for choosing these particular bishops are unknown at present. Most are from the 13th and 14th centuries: Thomas Cobham, William Gainsborough, Godfrey Giffard, Adam Orleton and Walter Reynolds. Walter Blandford was bishop in the 17th century.

The site was planned to allow for some existing trees to be kept. A number of large oaks on the estate are survivors from the former field boundaries and a fragmentary section of hedge also remains.

Interestingly, the 1970 report suggested footpaths be included to connect the estate to the A4104 opposite what are now Lime Grove and Cornfield Close, and the B4208 near the shop, but these were never built.

Welland’s 1847 tithe apportionment refers to a “House and Wesleyan Chapel” on the site of the present Chapel Cottage[s] (see map). This has caused some confusion with local historians as the building was described as a “School Room” and the denomination as “Independent” by the owner in the 1851 Ecclesiastical Census and had been such for some years. We can find no suggestion that this site was ever Methodist.

The earliest reliable reference we can find to Methodism in the area is in the Newent Circuit plan for June 1837, to the Malvern Wells Society (with two members.) At Midsummer 1840 the list of Societies included Welland (four members, leader W. Hart).

We find a reference to Mr Deveaux of Welland giving £1 towards the expenses of erecting a chapel of Birtsmorton, which was opened in 1844. And in December 1840, James Etchells, who was the Circuit minister based in Ledbury, registered the home of Robert Devereux (Mr Deveaux?), who was a shopkeeper at what is now known as Holdfast Cottage (see map) as a “place of religious worship”. There would have been regular preaching there, although this must have happened for only a relatively short period as there are no Wesleyan meeting places in Welland in the 1851 Ecclesiastical Census and Robert had moved by then. By Michaelmas 1847 the Welland Society had disappeared from the records. The societies were very fluid in those days, appearing and disappearing over the years as membership waxed and waned and was absorbed into other nearby societies.

The Malvern Circuit came into being in 1863 and there will have been a repositioning of Societies into the new circuit. In 1873 Malvern Wells is listed in the new circuit, meeting in a dwelling house and having 20 sittings.

By July 1877 conversations had begun to find a more suitable place for worship and by July 1878 land had been purchased at “Malvern Wells” at a cost of £30, the site of the present Methodist Church (see map). However, circuit records show that the circuit came under financial strain “greater than it can bear” and in 1885 the land was transferred to the Ledbury Circuit “in order that the building of a chapel may be proceeded with in connection with that circuit.” The chapel did not return to the Malvern Circuit until 1973.

The trust deed for the Malvern Wells was signed in 1878 (eight years before the building was erected). Thomas Chadney & Son were the builders. Chadney had been listed as the Society leader in the return for December 1886 and T. Chadney appears as the first Trustee. Appropriately enough his skill is listed as “builder”. It is clear that he was instrumental in building the present chapel at Upper Welland as we have a newspaper evidence of June 1886 of him getting fined for leaving chapel building materials on the highway!

An article in the Malvern Advertiser of the time of the chapel’s opening described it as “a neat but unpretentious structure of brick, with stone facing, and is to accommodate 120 persons.” Pevsner’s guide to the buildings of Worcestershire includes a listing for the chapel and notes that its brickwork has “ample yellow and blue trim; round-arched openings on the entrance front, pointed side windows.”

It was not until 1923 that the Society is first referred to as “Malvern Wells (Upper Welland)”. Between 1947 and 1951 this changes again to “Upper Welland (Malvern Wells)”. The majority of the members of the society in 1905 did not live in Upper Welland. By 1920 all of them lived in the village. This perhaps gives some justification for the subtle change of name of the society on the plan in the 1920s.

A schoolroom and vestry of corrugated iron were added sometime in the 1920s. In the early days the Chapel was heated by means of a tortoise stove using coal and coke. The original lighting was by gas, with electricity arriving in 1924. Mains water came to the chapel in 1978/79 followed by a kitchen installation and flush toilets.

The development of Upper Welland Chapel was, like many non-conformist churches, enabled and supported by individuals. In 1976 Mary Tibbles (church pianist) donated a piece of land to the rear of the building and another to the east in 1992 to enable a rebuild of the school rooms and vestry area. Major renovation work on the chapel itself also took place. The church hall is dedicated to Margaret Davis, long term member and supporter of the church.

The church is still active, with worship services every Sunday morning at 10:30am.

Note: “Welland, Lower Hook” Methodist chapel was erected in 1894, an iron chapel with 100 sittings, but this is clearly stated as being in the parish of Upton upon Severn so is not actually a Welland church. The last act of worship took place there on 26^th July 1903.

Church Farm House lies towards the western end of Drake Street (see map) and is relatively close to the current Church of St James from which it takes its name.  However the farmhouse predates this church and this site has been occupied for many centuries and the property known by at least six names. (Note: Church Farm House is not the same property as Churches Farm.)

The current building dates from the 19^th century although an earlier building was mentioned in the will of Richard Lutwich. Written in 1745, he bequeathed to his daughter Mary “… freehold messuages lands and tenements and hereditaments lying in the parish of Welland aforesaid which I purchased of Richard Turbevile clerk and one Thomas Sandy”. The land tax prepared for the following year includes:
Richard Lutwhich… and for Turbavills £1 1s 8d.

Turbavills (various spellings) is the earliest name for the property and it must have been in their family for a considerable period of time, possibly back to the middle of the 16^th century (although they may only have lived in Welland until the early 17^th century).  John Lawrence was their tenant during the Civil War and he was assessed as having two hearths in the 1660s.

The rental for 1790 names the property as “Lutwiches or Turberfils” and occupied by Adam Hewitt. This leads to the third name, which appears in the 1828 Tithe book for Welland where the building is described as “Hewitts Homestead”.

John Morton of Worcester bought the farm in the first few years of the 19^th century and he and his wife Ann owned it for nearly 75 years.  The farm included about 25 acres of land. The first of their tenants was Richard Harris, who was one of three occupiers over the next 150 years to combine with the larger Lawn Farm, creating a larger holding. Much of this land was given over to orchards.

The land tax records show that Joseph Goode was the tenant of the farm and the electoral register for 1846 onwards name the property as “Batchfords”, presumably a name that he chose.

The farm was still associated with about 30 acres of land in 1851, but when single brothers George and Henry Boulter (who had been farming at Hill Court) became tenants they increased the land holding. In the 1861 census they were 73 and 72 years old respectively and supported by two live-in servants. They were farming 48 acres and employing two men and a boy. 

The next tenants after this were Thomas and Emma Phelps who moved there in 1862, and eventually bought the property at the auction of the Morton estate (including two neighbouring cottages) in 1876.  By the time of the 1881 census the property was known as “Yew Tree Farm”.

Thomas Phelps was a significant presence in the parish.  He was elected parish constable in the early 1870s and was one of the Churchwardens during the period of construction and consecration of the new Church of St James from 1873 to 1875.  When an artillery camp was held on Castlemorton Common in July 1876, with soldiers attending from a variety of places, it was reported that the meat was supplied by “Mr Phelps, butcher of Welland”.  In the same month an auction of “two thousand gallons of prime cider, the property of Mr Thos. Phelps” was held.

By the time of the 1891 census, William (the 30 year old son of Thomas and Emma Phelps) and his wife Mary Ann were farming from the property.  This census is the earliest reference to the property as “Church Farm”.  This may have been the point where the smaller farm was reinstated as a separate entity and the name prompted by its proximity to the new Church.

The General Valuation Act resulted in a survey between 1911 and 1914 and described the building as brick and tiled with two sitting rooms, a kitchen and larder on the ground floor, four bedrooms and a landing on the first floor and two attics above. Outside, there was a brick and tiled butchers’ shop, as well as various thatched brick and half-timbered outbuildings, including a stable, barn and cart shed, and separate pig cots.

The Wastie family, who were known for their pioneering work with fruit, had moved to Lawn Farm soon after the Great War and combined Church Farm with their holding. Aerial photographs from the middle of the 20^th century onwards show that virtually the whole estate was set to orchards.  Their son Frank was living at Church Farm at the time of the 1939 Register and into the 1950s.

The current owner uses the name ‘Church Farm House’. This may be because the property is no longer a working farm. The farmland has been sold, leaving only the house, barn, outbuildings and a small amount of land.

There is something a bit different about Marlbank Farm (see map). The main frontage looks much grander than you would expect from a typical local farm with two storeys and attics, but this grandeur belies the fact that most of the building is only one room deep.

Uncovering the history of the property has relied on a range of disciplines and contributions from local people.

The first description of the property comes from a series of deeds and mortgages commencing in 1778 and running through to the 1850s. The earliest refers to two properties: the homestead and a cottage called “Hills”, each with a small area of land (5 and 3 acres respectively). The deeds all relate to the Heming family, originally from Castlemorton, who owned the properties throughout most of this period and lived there from at least the end of the 18th century to the 1840s.

The 1828 tithe book refers to the whole property as “Lutwidges”, named after John Lutwich senior and his son, also named John, who owned and lived in the farmstead from before 1746. John Lutwich senior died in 1762 and his will refers to both properties: “Late Hills” being inherited from his father Richard Lutwich, and the farmstead from his mother Ann Lutwich nee James. Unfortunately at this point the documentary trail goes cold regarding the earlier history of the farmstead.

A specialist in historic farm buildings, Dr Edward Peters, visited the property in 1982 and his notes and observations provide an insight as to the age of the buildings. The keystone and window lintels provide key dating evidence for the construction of the building to about 1700. This ties in with the date mentioned in the Grade 2 listing for the house. He was also able to confirm that the house was all constructed at the same time, from bricks which were probably made on site (the current tenants have had some difficulty sourcing appropriate 2⅝ inch bricks for renovation work). He noted that one of the ground floor windows had originally been a doorway and this is confirmed by an old photograph of the Bridges family taken about 1890 (and is included here courtesy of Roger Wood).

Dr Peters made an enlightening suggestion that the property might have been built as a dower house. This does fit quite nicely with the fortunes of the Taylor family who lived at Welland Court. Edmund Taylor, the heir to Welland Court, was married in 1699 and his widowed mother Penelope lived until 1710. Welland Court itself was completely remodelled and encased in brick about 1700. Having somewhere for Penelope to live makes sense. Comparing the Constable’s rates of 1724 with the land tax of 1746 shows a reduction in the Taylor family holdings of a similar value to that for which John Lutwich was assessed in 1746.  Although this is only speculation it could explain a lot about the construction of such a grand looking house.

When Thomas Hemming senior died in 1811 there was an auction held on the premises of his household goods and movable items associated with the farm. This paints a picture of a general farm with mixed livestock and arable, but with a preponderance of cider-related equipment.  Newspaper adverts up until the 1870s extol the virtues of “Excellent Potting and Cider fruit growing in 7 Orchards” and in 1876 the sale of “4,000 gallons of very superior cider and perry, of excellent quality”.

The original 8 acres around the property grew to over 100 acres by the time of the Enclosure Award of 1852 and this remained fairly constant until 1975.

Some of the outbuildings still standing are quite early in date, particularly the Grade 2 listed threshing barn also built about 1700.  From the 1880s onwards there was a greater focus on livestock – maps and aerial photographs from the late 19^th and first half of the 20^th century show how these barns and shelters grew in number and size to accommodate more animals.

The farm was owned by several absentee landlords during the second half of the 19^th century, before being bought by the Beringtons of Little Malvern Court in about 1907.  They owned it until 1947.  The tenants during the Second World War do not appear to have been very effective at farming and the property fell behind. By 1947 Edgar Fellows was the tenant and he had introduced several improvements including a generator for electric light throughout the house and buildings.

Marlbank Farm continued to be a large and productive farm until 1975, with the Ratcliffe family being the last tenants. The Berington family then re-purchased the estate, stripping off most of the land and selling on the buildings as a family home with scope for a variety of business opportunities. This has been the situation ever since.

Edmund George Band was born on 26 June 1884. The son of a farm labourer, he was to become the headmaster of Welland school from 1930 to 1945. Edmund Band followed Mr. Pardoe, who had been the previous headmaster since 1922.

Edmund Band’s wife Marie, née Audebert, was born on 9 September 1880 and, up to the age of at least sixteen, lived in France. The first time we encounter her in England is not until the 1901 census.

In 1891 Edmund was living in Alfrick with his parents George and Elizabeth Band. By 1901, he was living in Chapel House, Alfrick, with his widowed mother – he was then a ‘pupil teacher’. At this time, Marie Audebert was living in Hopton Lodge, Hopton Lane, near Alfrick. The record states that she was ‘head of the household, living on her own account’ (which means that she was self-supporting). Her occupation was ‘dressmaker’, and her place of birth was Lignières, France. It is not unreasonable to surmise that Alfrick was where Edmund and Marie first met. They married on 3 November 1906 at St Edburga’s church, Leigh. One of their witnesses was Christina Featherstonhaugh, who had been Marie’s next-door neighbour when she lived at Hopton Lodge. (Christina lived at Hopton Court.)

By 1911, Edmund and Marie had moved to 12 McIntyre Road, St. John’s, Worcester, and Edmund was recorded as a teacher. At the time of the 1921 census Edmund was working at Hounds Lane Boys’ School and he and Marie were living at 105 Laugherne Road, Worcester.

When Edmund’s posting to Welland school commenced in 1930 they came here to live in a newly built, dormer bungalow style of property named L’Arnon. It was the first dwelling on the right after turning into Upper Welland Road from the A4104 Marlbank Road. This turning became known locally as ‘Band’s Corner’. The river Arnon runs right through Lignières, Marie’s birthplace, so it is not unreasonable to assume that is why their house was named L’Arnon. (The house has since been renamed Priory View.)

Patrick Campbell in his book ‘Plums to Persia’ recalls the house smelling of lavender and Edmund Band walking down Marlbank Road to school in the morning, pupils joining him along the way. He describes Band as ‘an early conservationist, and an unconventional teacher’.

After Edmund retired, the couple continued living in the same property. Edmund died in 1958 and Marie in 1960. They are both buried in Welland cemetery.

The photo shows Edmund Band with some of his pupils from Welland School in the early 1930s.

Photo courtesy of Bernette Arrowsmith

The earliest maps of the area do not show roads at all. Instead, they focus on watercourses as markers in the landscape. However, Speed’s 1610 map of Worcestershire shows a bridge at Upton, suggesting an east-west routeway through the region. Furthermore, Welland was part of Bredon manor in medieval times and goods and stock were transported between Welland and Bredon, again suggesting a regularly used route east-west. In the fourteenth century there are records of pigs from Bredon being sent to pasture in the woods at Welland and when logs were transported from Welland to the Severn by people from Bredon in 1395-6, a wassail was provided. Upton’s importance as a port created traffic through Welland – as early as 1289 the Bishop of Hereford had his wine sent from Bristol up the Severn to Upton, after which it was transported by land to his palace in Hereford.

It is possible that the east-west route has existed since prehistoric times. Welland lies close to the ancient frontier of the Malvern Hills, between a crossing of the River Severn (at Upton) and the Dobunni Iron Age hillfort at British Camp. Another Iron Age settlement (possibly a grain management site) has been found recently on the same route, on the far side of the river near Upton. The route extends on to Bredon Hill, yet another hillfort site. Thus the route passing through Welland may have been a significant part of the Dobunni communication and transport network.

At first sight, Welland appears to be in a relatively flat area but a look at a combined LIDAR/aerial image (zoom in towards the red dot and use the slider to view with aerial photography) shows the lumps and bumps of the topography. It therefore seems likely that the routeway, and possibly the village itself, are sited where they are because the brook has cut through a ridge here, providing easier access up to the higher ground and the Hills.

A 1628 survey map of Malvern Chase names the route as Drake Street as it passes through the village (still its name today). Drawings of houses on the 1628 survey map hint at the existence of other roads (or tracks) such as that along the edge of what was then Welland Common (now the B4208), and also Woodside Lane.

There will have been other routeways but these are not recorded on maps before the mid-nineteenth century. The road from Drake Street to Welland Court and the old church (see map) must have been a routeway for centuries. Byefield Lane (see map) is an example of a road that presumably existed in medieval times, passing as it does alongside Westfield, one of the village’s common fields. There are many footpaths over and around the common fields too – evidence that these have been rights of way for a very long time.

Some old routeways have been “lost” over the years. The 1628 survey map shows a route heading south in Little Malvern, at the base of the Malvern Hills and a 1720 plan of Little Malvern also marks this route, naming it as “the road to Gloucester”. This suggests it was a major road, now only discernible as various minor roads and tracks along the base of the steep slope of the hills.

Roadways did not always have a system of maintenance. From the sixteenth century, it was up to each parish to manage their road system and this was a haphazard affair, despite appointment of (unpaid) Surveyors of the Highways to supervise the work. Pot holes, ruts and mud abounded, resulting in frequently used routes becoming very wide as users tried to avoid the terrible conditions along the centre. A Welland example of local maintenance responsibilities comes from historical evidence from the sixteenth century that shows that the maintenance of the road bridge over the brook at Brookend was the responsibility of the one of the copyholders who was allowed to take wood from the Bishop’s land to maintain the bridge. But there are few references in Welland’s parish records to highway maintenance so it seems reasonable to assume that the parish did not make road maintenance a high priority. In 1633, Welland was one of several Worcestershire parishes to be rebuked for the state of its roads. During the latter part of the nineteenth century responsibility for the upkeep of the roads was gradually removed from the parish and placed in the hands of other authorities. However, one major road (what is now the A4104) ceased to be the responsibility of the parishioners much earlier than this. From 1663 onwards, turnpike trusts were empowered to build roads and levy tolls from users – see our separate article on Turnpikes and Tollhouses.

The A4104 remains a major route through Welland for traffic heading east-west between Upton on Severn and Ledbury, though the B4208 heading north-south has become a second significant road in more recent years, providing a route between Worcester and Gloucester (and to the M50). This road crosses what used to be Malvern Chase and, as the road crosses the southern parish boundary, it passes immediately into the largest remaining piece of the Chase, Castlemorton Common.

Other roads were created or enhanced as a result of the Welland Enclosure Act, as a result of which the part of Malvern Chase in Welland parish was enclosed. The Inclosure Map of 1849 marks the road from Danemoor Farm towards The Hook as “New Road”. Such roads are typically very straight, following new large field boundaries.

The crossroads of the A4104 and B4208 has stimulated recent development of the village around this point so that the area around the crossroads is now considered the village centre. The crossroads also demonstrates the continuing development of our road system – the school is now bypassed by the main road.

The origin of Welland is uncertain and little documentation exists for its early development. Medieval documents refer to it as Wenlond or Wellond, perhaps meaning that in Anglo-Saxon times the land belonged to someone called Wenna.

Prehistory

Although there is unlikely to have been any significant settlement here in prehistoric times, the village lies close to the ancient frontier of the Malvern Hills and is on the route from a crossing of the River Severn (at Upton) to the Iron Age hillfort at British Camp (now the A4104). Another Iron Age settlement has been found recently on the same route, on the other side of the river. It has been suggested that this settlement forms part of the system used by the local tribe, the Dobunni, to control the region, including the distribution of cereal harvests stored at sites in the Severn valley. The route extends on to Bredon Hill, yet another hillfort site. Thus the route passing through Welland may have been a significant part of the Dobunni Iron Age travel network. (See Worcestershire Archaeology report.)

An archaeological evaluation by Worcestershire Archaeology (unpublished) was undertaken at Cornfield Meadows in 2020 (see map) and revealed a number of enclosure ditches and associated features at the northern end of the site close to the Marlbank Brook and its tributaries. It was dated by pottery to the later Iron Age and is probably an enclosed prehistoric settlement located within the fertile farmland adjacent to the brook. Evidence of extensive burning was recovered, including both heat affected pottery and Malvernian rock. The Malvern area provided a major regional focus for Iron Age pottery production, with rock from the hills used to temper locally produced pottery. It was therefore tentatively suggested that the site might have an association with pottery production.

Medieval

The first documented reference to Welland states that the village, together with Upton, was given to the Bishop of Worcester by Mercian lords in 889, perhaps as part of their support for the developing Christian church (the document’s authenticity is disputed.) The area was heavily wooded and it is unlikely that many people lived here – as late as the twelfth century the area around Malvern was referred to as wilderness.

Welland is not mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, probably because it formed part of the manor of Bredon. Several parishes in the area were subsidiary parts of manors further east in the more agriculturally developed zone of the Severn and Avon valleys. The western parts of the estates provided wood for tools, utensils, fuel and building, as well as woodland resources such as honey and game. Woodland areas were also valuable for the pasturing of swine – it may be that this began as a form of transhumance, the seasonal movement of stock from predominantly agricultural areas for summer pasture. Thus the linking of Welland with Bredon was on a sound economic principle, that of complementary resources.

After the Norman Conquest of 1066, Welland was one of thirteen parishes that were incorporated into William the Conqueror’s Royal Forest, commonly known as Malvern Chase, and subject to forest law. The owner of the land (the Bishop of Worcester) and those living on the land were subject to rigorously enforced rules about the use of the land, which aimed to protect hunting rights. Some clearings had been made before the Conquest but after afforestation, no further clearings were allowed unless permitted by licence of the king.

34 acres in Upper Welland were freed from forest law by Richard I in 1189 and in 1196 the Bishop of Worcester was allowed to extend his clearing by a further 300 acres. Such clearance is called assarting and explains the existence of Assarts Road in Upper Welland. The assart was said to be “neare the Bishoppe’s myll of Wenlonde.” It seems that Upper Welland developed as a distinct community from early times, with another forming around the area near Welland Court.

Taxation assessments suggest that by 1280 approximately 80 people lived in the village, increasing to about 130 by 1327. The population was particularly dense in Upper Welland, perhaps because of the unusual economic approach of letting out assarted land to tenants for money rent. The standard land economy at this time was to let to tenants who paid their rent by manual labour on land (desmesne) retained by the lord of the manor (the Bishop in this case).

In the area around Welland Court, meanwhile, another community was developing along more traditional lines. There is little documentary evidence to support it, but it is likely that this community worked large open fields split into strips and apportioned to individual tenants, with the fields being managed on a crop rotation system. It may be that this community developed earlier than that at Upper Welland – though there is no documentary evidence to support this idea, the traditional agricultural approach and the presence of the Court and church suggest this may be so.

Peasants in the middle ages were mostly tenant farmers but there were also small-scale industries such as potting and tile-making (evidence of clay pits abounds).

The manor had probably been separated from Bredon before 1535 because, in the valuation of the bishop’s lands taken at that time, it is entered apart from Bredon and had a separate bailiff.

The Tewkesbury and Malvern Railway (a branch of the Midland Railway from 1st July 1877) ran from Ashchurch to Great Malvern via Tewkesbury, Ripple, Upton upon Severn and Malvern Wells (renamed to Malvern, Hanley Road from 2nd March 1951 in order to avoid confusion with Malvern Wells on the Hereford line). Construction started from the West Midlands Railway at Malvern and Tewkesbury junction on 1st July 1862. The line opened on 16th May 1864, connecting with the Worcester & Hereford Railway at Malvern and the Birmingham & Gloucester Railway at Ashchurch. The section of line from Malvern and Tewkesbury Junction to Upton passes through the northern part of Welland parish (see map). This section was closed to passengers on 1st December 1952 and the track between Malvern Wells and Upton was lifted in September 1953.

Traces of the line can still be found.

The embankment that lifted the line across a brick bridge over the road towards Hanley Swan (by the junction with Gilver’s Lane) are still clearly visible each side of the road, but the bridge itself was blown up in the early 1970s.

Gilver’s Lane and several footpaths provide views of the line but, for access to the line itself, try Worcestershire’s Wildlife Trust site which runs along the line and has access and a car park at Brotheridge Green, just outside Welland’s parish boundary (see map and the Trust’s website page for details).

A railway buff, Martin Theaker, has done a very informative blog about the line with many fascinating photos. You can find it here. The articles relating to the Welland section are Lumber Tree Farm, Gilver’s Lane, Hillcourt Farm and Brotheridge Green. The article about Gilver’s Lane has several wonderful photos of the Welland Road bridge being blown up!

Railway embankment heading towards the Malvern Hills. Taken from the western end of the Brotheridge Green nature reserve.

Much of the land once belonging to Lawn Farm, on Drake Street, is now part of the Pippin Drive housing estate built a few years ago (see map).

In 1806 Richard Harris is recorded as the proprietor of a landholding paying £2 16s 11d in land tax. The farm name is not given but other records allow us to identify the land in question as Lawn Farm. The current house, brick with some timber framing, was probably already in existence at this time and part of the building may have 17th century origins. The house is Grade II listed. (See Historic England entry.)

Richard Harris married Sarah Solloway in 1798 at Coddington. After Richard’s death in 1829, Sarah continued to farm the land, appearing in the land tax records as Mrs Harris. She married again in 1836 and appears thereafter as Sarah Hooman or Homan. Intriguingly, her husband John Hooman did not appear in her household in the 1841 or 1851 census and her later will states that they were separated. In the 1851 census she is identified as a farmer of 40 acres, 82 years old. Sarah died in 1855.

By 1858 William Harris, a nephew of Richard Harris, was tenant, but the farm was owned by Edward Pace, whose connection to Welland is unknown at present. The 1861 census records William Harris and his family, farming 50 acres. Still the farm is only identified as ‘Farm house, Drake Street’. William died in 1874 and the John Harris who succeeded him was probably his son. It was during John Harris’s tenancy that we see the name ‘The Lawn Farm’ for the first time, in a newspaper advertisment of 15 September 1879 (Worcester Herald).

The advertisement announces an ‘important sale of fruit’ produced by several growers, to be held at The Pheasant in Welland. Heading the list is ‘Mr John Harris, The Lawn Farm’ with crops from Cherry Orchard, Hill Orchard, Stock Orchard, Bacon Hill and Westfield for sale (presumably apples, but this is not stated). There was also a ‘row of damsons’ in Pig Orchard and the fruit of a ‘large walnut tree at back of the house, very thick’.

By the time of the 1911 census Francis Wastie was the owner. He was born in 1867 at Eynsham, Oxfordshire, where the Wasties were a long established family. The 1939 National Register records him at Lawn Farm as a dairy farmer, with his wife Edith, daughters Gladys and Edith, and son Frederick, all engaged in farm work. Another son, Frank Wastie, was working at Church Farm. After his father’s death in 1954 Frank took over Lawn Farm and the family owned it until at least 1979.