Bromsgrove Museum, 26 Birmingham Road, Bromsgrove - 01527 831809 tic@bromsgrove.gov.uk

In 804, it was Bremesgrefan. It was the graefe (grove) where Breme lived.

Bromsgrove is first documented in the early 9th century as Bremesgraf. Later in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of 909 A.D. Bromsgrove is mentioned as Bremesburh. Then in the Domesday Book Bromsgrove is referenced as Bremesgrave. The Breme part of the place name is almost certainly a Saxon personal name.

Prior to 1086 Bromsgrove is known to have had a Royal chief manor, a priest and three water mills. It was an important royal vill astride to the Roman road linking Droitwich with the northern Midlands.[citation needed] It was at the centre of a very large parish and its church was certainly of minster status. Bromsgrove, along with all the towns in north Worcestershire, was committed to defending the city of Worcester and is recorded to have contributed burgesses to Droitwich in 1086. There may also have been Saxon or Norman fortifications in Bromsgrove, but other than in literature no physical archaeological evidence remains.

In the Anglo-Saxon times, Bromsgrove had a woodland economy consisting of hunting, maintenance of haies and pig farming.

At one time, Bromsgrove was a centre for the woollen trade, which went into decline before the 17th century.

The Bromsgrove Union Workhouse, on the Birmingham Road, was opened in 1838 and closed in 1948 and is in use as an Indian restaurant today.

Nail making was introduced by the French Huguenots in the 17th century and became a thriving industry. At one point Bromsgrove was the world centre of nail making. Mechanisation quickly put the industry into decline.

Bromsgrove was home for many years to the world-famous "Bromsgrove Guild", a company of craftsmen who produced many fine works of sculpture, ironwork, etc., including the gates of Buckingham Palace (whose locks are stamped with the Guild's name), the lifts on the Lusitania and the famous statue adorning the Fortune Theatre in Drury Lane.

In 1841, Bromsgrove railway works was established. It was primarily a maintenance facility but also built steam locomotives. The works provided employment for people in Bromsgrove. In 1964, following a reorganisation of railway workshops, the works closed and was demolished. The site is now a housing estate. One of the turntable pits still remains.

Major restoration of the Norman and 13th century St. John the Baptist church was carried out in 1858 by Sir George Gilbert Scott. In the churchyard here are the graves of two railwaymen, Tom Scaife and Joseph Rutherford who were killed when their steam locomotive blew up while climbing the steepest mainline railway gradient in England, at the nearby Lickey Incline, on 10 November 1840. The driver and his number two died instantly.

St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church in Worcester Road was built by Gilbert Blount in 1858.