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The city of Worcester (pronounced 'Wuster') is the county town of Worcestershire in England; the river Severn runs through the middle, with the city's large Worcester Cathedral overlooking the river.
Worcester was the site of the Battle of Worcester
(September 3, 1651), in which Charles II's attempt to retake the country from the Cromwell and the Parliamentarians was decisively
defeated, in the fields a little to the west and south of the city, near the village of Powick. Legend has it that Charles, having lost the
battle was forced to hide from his pursuers in an oak tree; a pub in the city is still named "The Royal Oak" in commemoration of
this. Worcester was one of the cities loyal to the king in that war, for which it was given the epithet "The Faithful City".
Industry is now quite varied; in the 19th and early twentieth century, Worcester was a major centre for glove manufacture, but this has declined greatly. Still located in the city are the Worcester porcelain factory
(near the cathedral), and, somewhat out of the centre, the factory that makes Worcester's most famous product, Worcestershire sauce. Worcester is the home of what is claimed to
be the oldest daily newspaper in the world, Berrow's Worcester Journal, which traces its descent from a newsheet that
started publication in 1690. Worcester is also the seat of the famous public schools the Royal Grammar School Worcester founded ante
1291, and the Worcester Cathederal School which was refounded in 1541 under King Henry VIII as The King's School, Worcester.
Probably Worcester's most famous citizen was Edward Elgar, whose father
ran a music shop at the end of the High Street; a statue of Elgar stands near the original location of that shop.
Announcing a new late night bus at 3am, Worcester councillors claimed that it was a "24-hour town".
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