Evesham School, operated by Worcestershire County Council, caters for children from the area aged 2 – 19 with special needs, and learning disabilities. Further education is provided by Evesham College, part of the Warwickshire College Group following the merger with South Worcestershire College (previously known as Evesham and Malvern Hills College) which caters mainly for students studying at the NVQ and BTEC level or undertaking practical vocational courses. The nearest higher education providers are the University of Worcester and the University of Gloucestershire. A University of the Third Age was established in 2003 and in 2010 had 600 members. It is
Worcestershire in the English Civil War effectively common land, with long-established although informal usage rights. Other local grievances against the Crown included action to suppress profitable tobacco production, which was well established in the Vale of Evesham. Charles I was simultaneously pursuing religious policies that provoked suspicion in Worcestershire. Although the county had a Catholic minority among its aristocratic families, the rest of the population was firmly Anglican, with a growing group of more radical Protestants in some of its northern towns, such as Kidderminster. Charles' apparent Catholic sympathies, such as the reforms of William Laud that reintroduced many of the trappings of Catholicism back into