History of Worcestershire Kidderminster and Blockley. Henry VIII confined cloth making to Bromsgrove, Kidderminster, Droitwich, Evesham and Worcester. Rural production of cloth had been spurred by rural poverty and the need to supplement incomes. Trade in Worcester and the cloth trade in Kidderminster was still controlled by guilds. Fulling (cleaning new cloth) around Worcester and dyeing in the Teme valley, for instance in Tenbury and Clifton, were major employers. Rope making was prominent around Bromsgrove. However, tanning was probably the largest single industry across the county, concentrated near rivers and streams in the north and west of the county. Glassmaking was first established
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