From the Time Traveller's Guide to Norton-juxta-Kempsey

Scroll down the page until you find the information you need. You will find more information about this place in the Time Traveller's Guide on the heritage detective's website.

You have found Norton Barracks. 

Information for Arthur. 

You have discovered that people live in apartments here today but you also have found out that until the 1960s this building was the main building, or keep, of Norton Barracks. Hundreds of soldiers have lived and trained here.  

In the 19th century Lord Coventry, who was then Lord of the Manor of Newlands, sold some of his land so that the barracks could be built. The building was built with bricks that were probably made at the brickworks up the road. For nearly a hundred years soldiers lived in Norton Barracks and Norton was a garrison village. At that time there was a train station here and the soldiers came to Norton from their homes all over Worcestershire.

Does this information help Arthur?

You have found an old telephone box.

Information for Arthur

We suspect that Arthur will think he knows about buildings like this one.  It may be red but it looks a bit like the blue hut that he uses to travel through the centuries.  Do tell Arthur what it is used for and why it looks so overgrown today.

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You have found an old black and white timber framed cottage. 

Information for Arthur.

You have discovered that these cottages are very old and have timber frames. They were built during the great Tudor housing boom at the beginning of the 17th century. This sort of cottage was once very common around here.  Cottages like these may not have changed much on the outside but inside there will be running water, electricity and many other modern conveniences. Tell Arthur about this and show him all the new houses in Norton. They have tiled roofs and double glazed windows.  You will have to help Arthur make sense of what you are telling him, the words and ideas will be new to him. You could ask him to tell you about the manor house at Catmole where he grew up. Then you can work out what is different and what is the same. 

Does this information help Arthur?

You have found Newlands Farm.

Information for Arthur.

You have discovered that this is just a farmhouse today but there really was once a farm here. The farm buildings are next door, they have been converted into homes for people. Lord Coventry owned the land around here.  In the middle of the 19th century he started selling it off for development first fo the railway and then for the barracks. In medieval times the Manor of Newlands was a sub manor of the Bishop’s Manor of Kempsey. The Lord of the Manor of Newlands was a tenant of the bishop. His tenants would have attended the Bishop’s Manorial Court in Kempsey and the Court of the Oswaldslow Hundred.  All the land around here was once a part of the Bishop’s Manor of Kempsey and everybody worked on the land for the benefit of the bishop and the church.

Does this information help Arthur?

You have found the Church of St. James the Great, Norton.

Information for Arthur..

You have walked around this church several times looking for walls and windows Arthur might recognise. If you are lucky you will have discovered that there is a wall that was built in the 12th century!  It has an interesting door in it and some very old windows. To see them today you will have to go inside because the modern extension, built on to the side of the church in the late 20th century, made an outside wall an inside one!  You can tell Arthur that you have discovered that this church was once a chapel of ease for the people who lived around here.  Their parish church was in Kempsey and that is quite a walk away!  It wasn’t until the 19th century, when things started to change in Norton and Norton finally became an independent parish with a vicarage of its own. 

Does this information help Arthur?

You have found an enormous bridge carrying some very fast moving traffic.

Information for Arthur. 

You have discovered that the noise you can hear is the sound of traffic; lorries and cars make a lot of noise as they drive quickly over the bridge. You have found out that a road to connect Birmingham and the Black Country to South Wales was considered long before the second world war but the road was not built until well after the war finished.  The M5 motorway and the Norton bridge opened in 1962. At that time the road had only two carriageways but the great volume of traffic meant that the road was widened to three lanes in the 1990s. The bridge also had to be widened too. Imagine how all the construction work affected in the old village centre. 

Does this information help Arthur?

You have found a bridge under a railway line.

Information for Arthur. 

The railway came to Norton in the middle of the 19th century. It was a busy time in Norton, a train station was built, there was major building work going on in the church and a new house for the vicar was under construction.  A bit later and work started on a new school. Things were a bit different for the ancient manor of Woodhall, the railway would cut it off from the village and the church.  This bridge must have been built to enable village people to get to work at the manor house and on the farm.  

You have found an old farmhouse.

Information for Arthur

Look carefully at the complex of buildings that make up Old Court Farm.  Can you see any cows, sheep or tractors?  What can you see?  Arthur would expect to see ploughs pulled by teams of six or eight oxen working the strips of land in the large open fields and whole families would be out weeding, pulling up the nettles and weeds by hand. Tell Arthur that around 1813 the Lord of the Manor, Lord Coventry who owned the Croome Estate, got permission to change the way people farmed.  The land was shared out according to how many of the old strips of land they owned. Everybody who qualified received a parcel of land which needed a fence or a hedge around it.  Some people did well out of this arrangement but others, who did not get enough land to make a living, left the area to work in the towns.  Since then things have change a lot again.  Very few people in Norton work on the land now because machines do much of the work.  Tell Arthur that is why farm buildings have been converted into houses and why very often there is nobody around.  He might also be interested to know that the Bishop of Worcester owned this land in Arthur's time.

Does this information help Arthur?

Information from the Heritage Knights

The children of Norton-juxta-Kempsey First School were the very first heritage detectives in the Pershore area. Their detective work solved the mystery of why Norton is called Norton-juxta-Kempsey. ‘Juxta' means ‘near’ so you might think it should be Norton-juxta-Worcester but it all goes back to the times when the land around here was a part of the Kempsey estate owned by the Bishop of Worcester. The church in Norton was a chapel of ease for the people of this area right up into the middle of the 19th century when it became a parish church in its own right. Before the Reformation the people of Norton had to travel to their Mother Church in Kempsey to celebrate the festivals of the Christian year, they also had to carry their coffins over the fields to bury their dead in Kempsey - whatever the weather! 

Many things happened to change Norton in the 19th century and one of the biggest was the building of the barracks, for nearly one hundred years Norton was a garrison village with hundreds of soldiers living here.  As you explore this place you will find many things that will remind you of those times, but would they mean anything to Arthur?