"O Dingley, Dingley, spare my breath:
It shall be called Oddingley heath."
Oddo and Doddo were two powerful dukes of the Mercian kingdom, whose history is connected with that of several towns in this district, and they were buried in Pershore church. Oddingley, however, most probably means "the field of Oding."
In Areley Kings churchyard is a curious monument formed of sandstone blocks, like a portion of a wall, being part of the ancient fence; it bears this inscription in old capitals:
"Lithologema quare?
Reponitvr Sir Harry."
Sir Harry Coningsby, who is thus commemorated, lived in a moated grange in Herefordshire, and was early left a widower, with one child, a daughter, on whom all his happiness was centred. He was standing one day at an open window with the child in his arms, when, in some playful action, she threw herself out of her father's arms, and fell into the moat beneath, where life soon became extinct. The wretched parent could no longer bear to reside at that fatal spot, and removed into Worcestershire, to a house called "The Sturt," in Areley Kings, where he led a solitary life, went usually by the name of "Sir Harry," and when he died was buried in a corner of the churchyard, the epitaph being carved on that part of the churchyard wall which formed Sir Harry's "pane.[8]" A walnut tree was planted close to the grave, and the boys of the parish were to have the walnuts, and crack them on "Sir Harry's" gravestone; but the tree was cut down by the late rector.
[8] The term "pane" means that portion of the churchyard fence which was allotted to each parishioner to keep in repair.
The ancient parish of King's Norton keeps up the memory of two traditions—first, that Queen Elizabeth once slept in a large and picturesque building still shown there; and second, that some centuries ago, letters were usually directed to "Birmingham near Kingsnorton." Droitwich likewise boasts of having, in some remote period, been a town of so much more importance than Worcester, that the latter was known chiefly by its vicinity to the former. There is indeed every probability that the salt springs of Droitwich were worked by the earliest settlers in this island.
The register of Broughton Hackett is said by Nash to contain an entry, that in the reign of Queen Anne the minister of that parish was tried, convicted, and executed, for baking his shepherd's boy in an oven!
There is a tradition at Birtsmorton that Cardinal Wolsey was once a servant in the Court-house of that parish.
Tibberton also has its traditions. It is said there that one Roger Tandy (temp. James I) was so very strong, that being at Sir John Pakington's, at Westwood, he took up a hogshead full of beer, drank out of the bunghole, and set it down again, without resting it on his knee or elsewhere. Also that one Hugh Pescod, alias "the little Turk," in the time of Oliver Cromwell, was hung up by the neck for half-an-hour by some Parliamentarian soldiers, and being cut down and thrown into a saw-pit, he recovered; in memory of which era in his history he planted some elm trees near his orchard at Wood Green.