Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

CHAPTER SIX
ZONE C: THE CENTRAL (WOOD-PASTURE) BELT
As its name suggests, this zone lies across the centre of the study area either side
of Alcester and the River Arrow, as defined in Chapter 2. 1
Traditionally characterised by
its woodland location straddling Feckenham Forest and the Forest of Arden, this Central
Belt contains seven Worcestershire parishes including Inkberrow, a large, populous
parish, which serviced many of its smaller neighbours. 2
These western (Worcestershire)
parishes would also look to market towns such as Pershore, Droitwich, Worcester and
Bromsgrove for their needs. The twelve Warwickshire parishes in this zone included
Aston Cantlow, which had vied for market town status in the middle ages and boasted a
Gild-house. 3
These eastern (Warwickshire) parishes would make use of markets at
Stratford upon Avon, Henley in Arden and Warwick.
In the late seventeenth century this zone was less densely populated than the other
zones except the Needle District. 4
However, the industrialising Needle District soon
increased its own density, leaving this Central Belt as the least densely populated zone
thereafter, with its share of the study area’s population continuing to fall. 5
In 1676 the
zone’s population lay in the range 3007 to 4316 and then grew by a possible 35.6% to its
1801 total of 4966. It increased by 34.4% to a total of 6672 in 1841 before declining in
1 See Appendix 1: Parish Gazetteer, Appendix 1a: Map of parishes in the Study Area and the section ‘The
Division of the Study Area into Sub-districts’ in Chapter 2.
2 In the mid-nineteenth century Inkberrow had a market which may have operated at this earlier period. It
also had a larger variety of trades than the surrounding small parishes. See Appendix 12.
3 VCH Warwickshire, iii, p. 32. A gild existed at the time of Henry VI. By 1660 the gild was probably
long gone, and the upper chamber of the Gild-house was used for manor courts.
4 See Table 3.15 in Chapter 3.
5 See Table 3.16 in Chapter 3.
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