Josephine wrote Evesham: A Pictorial History in collaboration with Arthur H. Fryer.
Evesham has a rich and varied past. From the foundation of its great abbey in the early 8th century, the town developed as the abbey grew in splendour. Though the Dissolution brought the abbey's ruin, its Bell Tower still survives to delight the eye and its Almonry now houses a museum in which there are many exhibits from monastic times. The town's place in national history was secured by the famous Battle of Evesham in 1265, in which Simon de Montfort died leading the barons of England against Henry III's eldest son, the Lord Edward.Evesham also played a prominent part in the Civil War, when Charles I stayed in the town and both Royalist and Roundhead troops tramped its streets.
In more peaceful days Evesham has been renowned for its riverside. In the early years of this century many of the visitors who came by train would have a small boat on the river or take an excursion on one of the steamers. Every Whit Monday a famous regatta was organised by the Rowing Club and Evesham became known as 'the Henley of the Midlands'. Then, as now, the town was acclaimed as the centre of the fruit and vegetable growing industry of the Vale of Evesham, with the spring blossom of apple, cherry, pear and plum orchards providing a spectacular event each year. Since the camera was invented, the town, the river and the blossom have attracted fine photographers, whose surviving images have been skilfully used by the authors to illuminate their very readable narrative account of Evesham's past.
The book will be warmly welcomed throughout the area, by townsfolk and visitors alike, for the vivid impression it provides of how things used to be in the place that the locals still call Asum...
![[Evesham book]](pics/eves.jpg)
![[Acorn Inside]](pics/index.jpg){kind=small}