History of Broadway

Broadway was a domain of the Mercian Kings and was vested in the Crown in the person of King Edgar in 967. The first existing documentary evidence of importance is embodied in a Charter that King Edgar granted to the Benedictine Monastery of Pershore in 972. In this Anglo-Saxon text, Broadway is called Bradanwege and its boundaries are described in great detail. The complete copy of the Charter may be seen in the British Museum (Facsimile Volume III 30).

By the eleventh century the village was already well-established and apparently thriving. It is listed in the Domesday Book in Great Domesday folio 175 for Worcestershire as part of the land holdings of the Church of St Mary of Pershore: "The church itself holds Bradeweia. There are 30 hides paying geld. In demesne are 3 ploughs; and a priest and 42 villeins with 20 ploughs. There are 8 slaves. The whole in the time of Edward was worth £12 10s; now £14 10s."

It continued to prosper, becoming a Borough by the thirteenth century. For Broadway this marked a considerable departure from the entirely peasant community that had existed in former times, though the following two centuries saw it decline in the wake of the Black Death. Its fortunes were revived during the late sixteenth century after the Reformation relieved Pershore Abbey of ownership in 1539. There followed three centuries of almost unbroken growth, during which the population increased to about five times its Elizabethan level. As in other Cotswold towns, wealth was based on the wool and cloth trade.

By this time the village had become a busy stagecoach stop on the route from Worcester to London. The road between Evesham and the summit of Fish Hill became a toll-road as a result