The Glover's Needle (or St Andrews Spire) is a spire-carrying

tower A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...

in the city of

Worcester, England Worcester ( ) is a cathedral city in Worcestershire, England, of which it is the county town. It is south-west of Birmingham, north of Gloucester and north-east of Hereford. The population was 103,872 in the 2021 census. The River Severn f ...

Description

The tower is a prominent landmark of the city, from road, rail, or the

River Severn The River Severn (, ), at long, is the longest river in Great Britain. It is also the river with the most voluminous flow of water by far in all of England and Wales, with an average flow rate of at Apperley, Gloucestershire. It rises in t ...

, and can be seen for miles around. The highest point on the spire is 74.7 metres (245 feet) tall, making it the tallest building in Worcester. It is located in St Andrews Gardens close to

Worcester College of Technology Heart of Worcestershire College is an academic institution with campuses at Worcester, England, Worcester, Malvern, Worcestershire, Malvern, Redditch and Bromsgrove. It was established in August 2014 on the merging of Worcester College of Tech ...

.Glover's Needle

Worcester Water Walkabout
, UK. The spire used to crown the church of

St Andrew Andrew the Apostle ( ; ; ; ) was an apostle of Jesus. According to the New Testament, he was a fisherman and one of the Apostles in the New Testament, Twelve Apostles chosen by Jesus. The title First-Called () used by the Eastern Orthodox Chu ...

but this was demolished in the late 1940s. The Glover's Needle is seated on Deansway,

Worcester Cathedral Worcester Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of Christ and Blessed Mary the Virgin, is a Church of England cathedral in Worcester, England, Worcester, England. The cathedral is the seat of the bishop of Worcester and is the Mother Church# ...

being very close to the south and All Saints Church to the north. On the western side of the spire the pedestrian can descend into gardens that lead onto the River Severn. Across the road from the Glover's Needle is a "

House of Fraser House of Fraser (rebranding to Frasers) is a British department store chain with 23 locations across the United Kingdom and 2 in Ireland, part of Frasers Group. It was established in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1849 as Arthur and Fraser. By 1891, it ...

" shop which stands on the site of the old graveyard of St Andrews. At night the spire is illuminated (but not the tower below) and a blue glow is projected from inside one of the windows. The blue represents St Andrew, the colour of the Scottish flag. The blue glow and night lighting were paid for by the Rotary Club of Worcester Severn, to commemorate the millennium in 2000.

History

St. Andrews, a church with a tall spire, was built in the 15th century, but this was destroyed in a great storm of 1733. The spire was rebuilt in 1751 by Nathaniel Wilkinson. It was constructed by using the ingenious method of

kite flying A kite is a tethered heavier than air flight, heavier-than-air craft with wing surfaces that react against the air to create Lift (force), lift and Drag (physics), drag forces. A kite consists of wings, tethers and anchors. Kites often have ...

to carry up the stones. Worcester people took the new masterpiece to their hearts and named it the 'Glover's Needle'. This name came from the industrial glove making that was executed in Worcester. The entire structure measures approximately 245 feet. It is the tallest spire in the country to have such a narrow angle of taper. In the 1920s the

slum housing A slum is a highly populated urban residential area consisting of densely packed housing units of weak build quality and often associated with poverty. The infrastructure in slums is often deteriorated or incomplete, and they are primarily in ...

which crowded round the church was demolished. The congregation of the church was thus reduced by a large degree. The church fell into decay, had an overgrown churchyard, few parishioners and a tiny parish of five acres. In the 1940s, the council accepted the

Bishop of Worcester The Bishop of Worcester is the Ordinary (officer), head of the Church of England Anglican Diocese of Worcester, Diocese of Worcester in the Province of Canterbury, England. The title can be traced back to the foundation of the diocese in the ...

's offer of the church. They decided to demolish the church and create a garden of remembrance to replace it, but decided to leave the tower and spire, freestanding. The rest of St Andrew's church was demolished in 1949. The original top was replaced by a copy; the original can be found in the public garden which replaced the demolished church.

Developments near the millennium

As a millennium project, a clock was installed in the tower and now the hours are struck on the council bell. A recently reinstated custom is to have the council bell strike from 18:45 to 18:50 before a full meeting of the council. In the early 2000s a fence was put around the base of the spire. A few years ago, the

RSPB The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is a Charitable_organization#United_Kingdom, charitable organisation registered in Charity Commission for England and Wales, England and Wales and in Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, ...

has taken the Glover's Needle into their own hands and the actual spire is now used for special birds of prey for roosting. Live web cams have been installed in the tower.

Bells

The Glover's Needle formerly housed a set of five bells. These were hung full circle for proper English style

change ringing Change ringing is the art of ringing a set of tuning (music), tuned bell (instrument), bells in a tightly controlled manner to produce precise variations in their successive striking sequences, known as "changes". This can be by method ringing in ...

. In 1870, four of the bells were sold but the tenor (heaviest bell) was retained in the old bell frame. This bell weighs 20 CWT — 1 ton. This is the so-called council bell mentioned above. It is unlikely that the Glover's Needle could sustain a ring of bells today as there is no church to buttress the swaying tower.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Glover's Needle, The Buildings and structures in Worcester, England Tourist attractions in Worcester, England Towers in Worcestershire Churches in Worcester, England