Fort Royal Hill

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Fort Royal Hill, is in a park in Worcester and the site of the remains of an English Civil War fort.

[edit] History

Fort Royal was a Civil War redoubt on a small hill to the south-east of Worcester overlooking the Sidbury Gate. It was built by the Royalists in 1651 to defend the hill, because during the siege in 1646 Parliamentry forces had positioned their atillery on the hill and had been able to severly damage the city's walls.^[1]

During the final stages of the Battle of Worcester, fought on September 3, 1651, the last battle of the war and a Parliamentry victory. As the Royalists retreat turned into a route in which Parliamentarian and Royalist forces intermingled and skirmished up to and into the city. The Royalist position became untenable when the Essex militia stormed and captured Fort Royal, turning the Royalist guns to fire on Worcester.^[2]^[3]

In early April 1786, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson visited Fort Royal Hill at the battlefield at Worcester. David McCullough wrote in his definitive biography John Adams that Adams was "deeply moved" but disappointed at the locals' lack of knowledge of the battle, giving the townspeople an "impromptu lecture":

The people in the neighborhood appeared so ignorant and careless at Worcester that I was provoked and asked 'And do Englishmen so soon forget the ground where liberty was fought for? Tell your neighbors and your children that this is holy ground, much holier than that on which your churches stand. All England should come in pilgrimage to this hill, once a year." ^[4]