The High Street (looking north towards the Cross and the Foregate)

From at least 900 A.D. and probably long before, the High Street has been the most important street in the city. Running centrally down the spine of the gravel ridge on which Worcester was built, there are indications that it may have developed from a Roman road. The location of St Helen's church on it suggests that it was probably in use and of significance in the post-Roman centuries (the 'Dark Ages'). It was the market street of the Anglo-Saxon burh founded by 900 A.D.

By the time that documentary evidence becomes available (around the time of the model) the city's wealthiest properties were all on the High Street, as was the Guildhall, the centre of medieval and later city government. The only architectural remains to survive of this great commercial street from around the 13th century are fragments of stone-built and sometimes vaulted undercrofts, used for warehousing and taverns. A few may still await discovery in city centre cellars.