Kidderminster is a large market and historic minster town and civil parish in Worcestershire, England, south-west of Birmingham and north of Worcester. Located north of the River Stour and east of the River Severn, in the 2021 census, it had a population of 57,400. The town is twinned with Husum, Germany. Situated in the far north of Worcestershire (and with its northern suburbs only 3 and 4 miles from the Staffordshire and Shropshire borders respectively), the town is the main administration centre for the wider Wyre Forest District, which includes the towns of Stourport-on-Severn and Bewdley, along with other outlying settlements. History The land around Kidderminster may have been first populated by the Husmerae, an Anglo-Saxon tribe first mentioned in the Ismere Diploma, a document in which Ethelbald of Mercia granted a "parcel of land of ten hides" to Cyneberht. This developed as the settlement of Stour-in-Usmere, which was later the subject of a territorial dispute settled by Offa of Mercia in 781, when he restored certain rights to Bishop Heathored. This allowed for the founding of a monastery or in the area. The earliest written form of the name Kidderminster was first documented in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it appears as Chideminstre, meaning 'Cydda or Cydela's minster or monastery'. It was a large manor held by William the Conqueror, with 16 outlying settlements (Bristitune, Fastochesfeld, Franche, Habberley, Hurcott, Mitton, Oldington, Ribbesford, Sudwale, Sutton, Teulesberge, Trimpley, Wannerton and Wribbenhall). Various spellings were in use – Kedeleministre or Kideministre (in the 12th and 13th centuries), Kyderemunstre (13th–15th centuries) – until the name of the town was settled as Kidderminster by the 16th century. Between 1156 and 1162 Henry II granted the manor to his steward, Manasser Biset. By six decades later, the settlement grew and a fair (1228) and later a market (1240) were established there. To the south by the River Stour, dating from the 15th century, is a single surviving tower of Caldwall (or Caldwell) Castle, a fortified manor house. Kidderminster owes its growth to the early development of the cloth industry, which was aided by its position upon the River Stour, and its location at the congruence of four main roads to Birmingham, Dudley, Worcester, Bewdley and Bridgnorth. In a visit to the town sometime around 1540, King's Antiquary John Leland noted that Kidderminster "standeth most by clothing". Over the following centuries the town specialised in