The courtyard of a house in Friar Street is a good example of the street architecture of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Friar Street is called from the house of Grey Friars that was formerly situated at the north end of the street, and
is now completely destroyed. The houses in Friar Street afford an interesting series of the class of building that prevailed during the reigns of the Henrys and Elizabeth. The timber beams of which the houses are constructed are piled up with mortar or bricks, and whitewashed; while the overhanging storeys, the high-pitched gables, the lead lattices in the windows, and the rude grotesque ornaments, present an almost unique picture of an English street.
At the end of Friar Street is the Corn Market, where Charles II. was concealed after the battle of Worcester.
The gates of the city were open to him on his march from Scotland with the army he had raised there, and he made Worcester his head-quarters, in the house where Judge Berkeley was born. Of the
memorable battle of Worcester, which ended the prospects of the Stuart line for a time, a local historian says, on the 3d September, after a skirmish at Powick, the order was given by the king to attack Cromwell, then lying at Perry Wood, about a mile from the town. The contest commenced rather late in the day, and it was in favour of the Cavaliers, who compelled the Parliamentary troops to abandon some of their guns; but reinforcements arrived in great numbers from the other side of the Severn to support the Republicans, and after maintaining a very unequal combat for a long time the king’s troops were obliged to retreat; a handful of troops defended Sidbury gate, whilst the king escaped from his pursuers. His Majesty, on entering Sidbury, was obliged to dismount, and creep under a waggon of hay which had been purposely upset across the street at that part to impede the ingress of his pursuers, and he entered the city on foot. A horse was immediately brought ready saddled, by a Mr. Badnall, who lived near Sidbury gate, and the king was thus enabled to hasten to his quarters, at a house in the corn market, from the back door of which he escaped with Lord Wilmot, just as Col. Cobbett reached the front in pursuit of him. Over this house, which, as before said, is still standing in the corn market, is the inscription, “Love God. (W.B. 1557. R.D.) Honour the King.”
The illustration of the entrance into the Cathedral Close represents the front of Edgar Tower looking towards the east. It is said to be uncertain if this building was designed by the castellans or ecclesiastics, as there is some doubt concerning the ownership of the site on which it stands; but appearances, which, in the architecture of the period, are a fair indication of such things, seem
