1100 AD Anglo-Norman Worcester

The immediate physical impact of the Norman Conquest on English Worcester was the building of a castle - to monitor it and, if need be, suppress it. But the city continued to grow, and successive bishops continued to play the central organising role in its growth.

In 1084 Bishop Wulfstan (one of the few English bishops remaining in office long after 1066) began a great rebuilding of the cathedral: much of the footprint and parts of the structure of the present cathedral and cloister are his work. Around 1100, one of Wulfstan's successors laid out a great new, planned, suburb, now Foregate and Foregate Street, extending from the area (now The Cross) just outside the old Saxon north gate, as far as the Tything. The old suburbs continued to grow, and housing spread over the river onto the west bank.