Talk:Malvern, Worcestershire

Bus transport

Bus routes in England - particularly in the Midlands - and their timetables and operators change frequently. The transport section has been allowed to grow and become populated with outdated and volatile content. The section has now been trimmed, dead sources commented out, and replaced with a new source that covers all. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:01, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Sources

The referencing system is a mess. The MoS clearly states that while there are no hard and and fast rules for citation systems, no changes to the prevailing system should be made. If adding new sources, please be sure to use the existing system, and add new citations, using the citation template, in in alphabetical order in the References section. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:52, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Malvern and Great Malvern

Sorry if this seems like an odd question, but what's our basis for calling the town simply 'Malvern'? There's no doubt that the civil parish is called 'Malvern', but the Ordnance Survey and ONS (search for 'Great Malvern' on the map) refer to the town and its built-up area as 'Great Malvern'. A.D.Hope (talk) 22:15, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I don't think we should describe it as a town, its parish council may be named as a town council but that's also the case with Frinton and Walton. Crouch, Swale (talk) 22:31, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Well it would complicate Great Malvern, would that be moved or merged? But yes, OS do use the term for a town

Some sources, particularly tourism boards and councils, state Great Malvern as a town centre of (the town of) "Malvern". So seems thats the existing explanation on the surface in sources. But IMO there needs to be an in-depth source describing the town as Great Malvern, rather than just database entries for essentially the "official name". If that is found there may be a stronger case IMO. DankJae 22:43, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm not proposing a move or merge at this stage, just exploring the two names. Britannica uses "Great Malvern", the BBC seems to use both, as does the Guardian; the Telegraph has managed to use both in the same article! A.D.Hope (talk) 23:21, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Of those "The Telegraph" does state it as a spa town as does EB, so a stronger link, the others used it more generally, possibly as just a general locator or not exactly referring the topic of this article (due to lack of context), so not concrete. But any source saying "Great Malvern is a (spa) town" is the best source, so far getting there, and if many do then a move/merge can be proposed. DankJae 23:58, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

One needs to look closely at what the sources are referring to. They seem to be pretty consistent in referring to the 'core' town as Great Malvern and the wider suburbs and area as Malvern. For example, the BBC sources highlighted refer to the Three Counties Showground in Malvern, the wider area outside of the town and the college in Great Malvern, the town — same with The Telegraph. The Guardian refers to Pound Bank Road in Malvern, outside the town centre but talks about the touristy part as Great Malvern. The apparent conflict lies with OS current mapping and ONS suggesting Great Malvern is the name of the entire built up area. Rupples (talk) 00:40, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

The OS and ONS sources unambiguously name the town "Great Malvern". Bing can display the 1:50k and 1:25k OS maps, and at those scales town names are denoted by large capitalised type and the names of their suburbs and other areas within them by smaller sentence case type. In this case "Great Malvern" is in large caps, so it's the town name.

Of the articles, the Telegraph uses the two names interchangeably and the Guardian "Let's move to..." definitely refers to the entire settlement as "Great Malvern" as it contrasts it with the surrounding villages, such as Madresfield. The BBC might deliberately distinguish between "Great Malvern" and "Malvern", but I'd need to find more articles to be sure. A.D.Hope (talk) 01:20, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

OS used to have Great Malvern marked twice on earlier maps; one for the parish and one for the town. The Malvern Link article makes interesting reading in connection with this. More recently, Great Malvern on mapping is the built up area, so yes my understanding is that nowadays it covers the spa town and former independent places, now looked upon as suburbs. Rupples (talk) 02:09, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

@A.D.Hope. Are you saying the main article should be Great Malvern rather than Malvern, Worcestershire and North Malvern, Malvern Link, Poolbrook, Sherrard's Green and Wyche, Worcestershire all described as suburbs of Malvern should be noted as suburbs of Great Malvern? Rupples (talk) 02:33, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, the toponymy in the area is quite interesting. For our purposes I think the fact the civil parish is called "Malvern" and the town is called "Great Malvern" or "Malvern" serves as a natural disambiguation. If I were setting out these articles from scratch I'd call the one about the civil parish "Malvern" and the one about the town "Great Malvern", while noting that the latter is also called "Malvern".

I'm reminded of Bishop Auckland, which is a merger of Bishop Auckland, West Auckland, St Helen Auckland, and South Church and where the name of the principal settlement has come to be used for the whole agglomeration (despite its centre being right on the urban boundary). A.D.Hope (talk) 09:27, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Great Malvern was a parish until 1974 (though only an urban parish in Malvern UD) but Great Malvern was a district from 1894 to 1898. "Great Malvern" seems to have been used as an alternative name for "Malvern" in the past but as noted "Great Malvern", "Malvern Link", "Malvern Wells" and "West Malvern" were all parishes until 1974 so should probably stay separate. Crouch, Swale (talk) 20:49, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

• Great Malvern was the original town and is still the small(ish) town centre and is within the boundary,but not in the middle, of the urban agglommeration governed by Malvern Town Council and its nine electoral wards. Long-term Wikipedians are aware that it is commonplace to have standalone articles for town and city neighbourhoods and small unincorporated settlments. Whatever the newspapers or the BBC, or ancient OS maps use for names, the UK government has the final say. Boundaries are decided by parliament and the local government section has been updated to reflect changes enforced by the 2023 Boundary Commission for England report. Under these changes the former electoral ward of 'Priory' has been renamed Great Malvern by local consensus. As the many Malvern residents who are the regular curators of this article are aware, Malvern is unusual because it is made up of several suburbs referred to collectively as 'The Malverns' and most of them have their own Wikipedia articles. Anyone in England normally refers to the town as 'Malvern' and Great Malvern is mostly used when buying a train ticket to know which of the two stations is nearest to one's destination. There are no official postal addresses with 'Great Malvern' any more than there are for Malvern Link, North Malvern, West Malvern, or Malvern Wells. There are no guidelines or policies that suggest that any of our Malvern articles should be moved or merged because they are no longer a parish, and to do so would be a solution looking for a problem. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:42, 15 January 2026 (UTC)

Images

To avoid possible disruption to this article's GA status, it's probably best to discuss including additional images or duplicating existing ones. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:39, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

Having three infobox images is OK, don't necessarily see why GA status would be affected, but agree there's an element of duplication. @MatthewDavid41 my initial reaction is to question the Belle Vue image; it's rather dominated by the flowers. Rupples (talk) 15:32, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

I’ll have another look and see if there are better images. Thank you MatthewDavid41 (talk) 16:01, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

If there must be a gallery of images in such a well illustrated article (and personally I think it's superfluous), they should not simply be duplicates of images already used (or just views of the same thing from another camera angle), but they should be something specifically representative of the town. The Bellevue Terrace image could be a postcard pic of any part of any parish anywhere in the Western world. There are over 500 images on Commons and it would be easy enough for us to take some more. Malvern already has a rich history and culture and its Wikipedia article does not need to look like a tourist brochure. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:33, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

I second the above. Rupples (talk) 16:45, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

Hi There, I’ll have a look at the image again, but there is nothing stopping you from identifying another image. There was no previous discussion about the original image, hence the change but I agree it’s a good point to raise about the images in general now to try and attract people to talk etc MatthewDavid41 (talk) 01:28, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Hi. The issue of images was already in discussion phase, especially: they should not simply be duplicates of images already used (or just views of the same thing from another camera angle). This comment by JMF might help. There are over 500 Malvern images on Commons, and as many of the contributors are local people, making more is not an issue. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:34, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

For the broader context for my comment and other opinions, see discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography#Unilateral changes to the image collages for many settlements. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 08:53, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

@JMF I had also made a similar observation at the WikiProject_Cities during the prep for GA at Worcester . Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:23, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

The relevant guidance generally accepted for UK settlements is given at Wikipedia:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about settlements#Lead image. Villages and small towns need no more than one; larger towns maybe three. Big cities like London and Birrmingham can maybe jusitify six plus a panorama. (Do as I say, not as I do! Milton Keynes has six because of its polycentric design.) --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 10:01, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Hi JMF,

I am finding it incredibly frustrating of your explicit intention to comment on everything I may have done without opening such discussions on my talk page. But this seems to be repetitive and it’s not something I have done to you. Many thanks MatthewDavid41 (talk) 13:45, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

@MatthewDavid41 I think you'll find that JMF, like all other people who have commented on your edits, is only trying to be helpful. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:24, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

I think what someone may perceive as being helpful, to someone else it may not be. It all depends on the tone of messages, how support is offered and for there to be positive messaging.

Anybody can say they are people helpful but it doesn’t mean they are being as such. Thanks MatthewDavid41 (talk) 04:07, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

@MatthewDavid41 It may surprise you, but my remarks in reply to Kudpung กุดผึ้ง were to ensure that the broader context was clear and to identify that some editors considered your changes to be reasonable.

It is entirely appropriate for me to respond to an invitation to comment, wherever it arises. (And as you well know, I have written to you at your talk page whenever it was appropriate.) 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 15:55, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

People connected with Malvern

The Notable people section has grown and there are now more people on it than on List of people connected with Malvern, Worcestershire. Can it be pruned to the most prominent of them? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:55, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

@Kudpung. Share your concern. Seems an inordinate amount of duplication with the 'List of' article. Are you aware of any guideline/criteria to help select the persons to be removed? Rupples (talk) 16:06, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

@Rupples No, but probably keep 10 at the most. How about these suggestions to keep in the article:

• Michael P. Barnett who also contributed largely to getting the article to GA
• Nigel Coates, Emeritus Professor of the Royal College of Art
• Anne Diamond, well known broadcaster
• Edward Elgar, of course - the UK's most famous classical composer. Streets in Malvern named after him
• Charles Hastings (English physician) , founder of the BMA. Streets in Malvern named after him
• William Langland, wrote Piers Ploughman which everyone read in school. Streets in Malvern named after him
• C. S. Lewis, everyone has read The Chronicles of Narnia
• Jeremy Paxman, Broadcaster, and every college educated Brit has watched University Challenge
• Jacqui Smith, politician, former British Home Secretary
• Franklin D. Roosevelt, I think most people have heard of him. At least the Americans have, even if they've never been to Malvern

Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:35, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

Sound reason to keep those with streets named after them (or with plaques). Good idea to retain a diverse spread across eras and occupations. Perhaps include a couple of lesser knowns (negative, their article might not be comprehensive - positive, could encourage expansion of their article should more readers click the link). Of this type, I'd include Charles William Dyson Perrins and perhaps deselect Ann Diamond or Jeremy Paxman (both broadcasters). Other than that, go ahead, see if there's any "kick back". Rupples (talk) 18:33, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

@Rupples Done. Feel free to make any changes. There are at least 60 or more notable Malvern people who are missing from List of people connected with Malvern, Worcestershire; when I get round to it I'll add them and then try to format it like the list I started at List of Old Malvernians. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:44, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Looking at it from 100 miles away, my inclination would be to restrict the list in this article to people born and raised in Malvern. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 08:57, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

@JMF looking at it from 5,920 miles away right now but being intimately familiar with the town and its rich heritage, if we were to do that we would be left with an architect, a former very senior politician, a former leader of the Green Party, an X-Factor 4th place runner up, and a cross-country mountain bike gold medalist. There are not a lot of native notables because it was a small place and since its sudden expansions in the 19th and 20th centuries it's a town people mainly move to. On the stand-alone list of 35 people, the only thing many of them did was to be born or die there - they never lived there, but there are a lot of people, who like Elgar, were born nearby or further afield but lived most of their lives there or what they did there had an important impact. I'll take another look. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:09, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

I recognise the problem but your choice is either the hard and fast rule or a subjective opinion on who to include and who to exclude. How about "people who lived there for more than half their lives"? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 15:42, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

@JMF. Suspect it would be difficult to source what people have lived here for specific periods of time. Prefer editor discretion that gives a diverse yet limited spread of notable people rather than a hard and fast rule. Rupples (talk) 16:11, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

@JMFI think the compromise has to be a bit more flexible. People who lived half their lives there would rule out my contemporaries who were born and bred there, went away to college and never came back to live there permanently, and would leave us with no one. @Rupples makes an interesting observation of the contrast between two cities, IMO Malvern should sit somewhere between. Perhaps a starting point would be the people who had the most impact on the town and whose names are on the lips of every resident and many street signs and statuary. That would rule out those who only came here just to go to Malvern College, but would introduce people like Rose Garrard whose . Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:30, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Up to (your) local consensus of course but it is useful to have a defensible criterion to fend off even more subjective additions in the future. Street names and blue plaques are certainly a minimum. You "just" need to find a criterion for a more recent personalities. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 19:29, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

@Rupples The MoS guideline for embedded lists strongly recommends reducing them to prose. That's what we did at Malvern College for example. I have put this together as a suggestion, but it is only a suggestion and we can just as easily do without it:

In addition to those born in Malvern, many notable people came to the town to provide or partake of its Hydrotherapy, to be educated or to teach at the large number of independent boarding schools such as Malvern College with its long list of notable alumni, and its elementary school, The Downs, and Malvern St James for girls, that still remain active into the 21st century. A significant number of people were scientists at the Telecommunications Research Establishment, and its successor the Royal Radar Establishment, the country's largest secret defence research facility with around 4,000 civil servants and military personnel, and the quango it became (as of 2011), QinetiQ.

The Malvern Hills, a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, have also inspired several poets and novelists.Many people connected with Malvern have gained recognition in such fields as politics, business, science, broad casting, literature, and the arts. Among the most famous is Sir Edward Elgar, his composition of the "Pomp & Circumstance March No. 1" to part of which "Land of Hope and Glory" is sung is often used as the patriotic anthem at international sporting events and the finale every year at the Last Night of the Proms. He was appointed Master of the King's Musick in 1924. Among novelists and poets are C. S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia, William Langland whose allegorical narrative poem Piers Plowman (written c. 1360–1387) begins on the Malvern Hills. Author David Mitchell, whose works include his multi award-winning 20904 novel Cloud Atlas was made into a 2012 Hollywood movie, and Black Swan Green, which takes place in Malvern. Mitchell was raised in Malvdern and like Nigel Coates, was educated at Hanley Castle High School and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

The many sculptures Rose Garrard include the statue of Sir Edward Elgar and the Enigma Fountain unveiled by Prince Andrew, Duke of York on Belle Vue Terrace in 2000. The politician Baroness Jacqui Smith, is a former British Home Secretary, one of the Great Offices of State, was born and raised in Malvern and attended attended Dyson Perrins High School which was founded by Charles William Dyson Perrins (1864–1958), an art collector, philanthropist, local government office holder and son of James Dyson Perrins, the owner of the Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce factory.

The architect Nigel Coates (b. 1949), was Unit Master at the Architectural Association from 1978 to 1988. From 1995 to 2011 he was Professor and Head of the Department of Architecture at the Royal College of Art and in 2011 was made Emeritus Professor. He is Chair of the Academic Court at the London School of Architecture. Michael P. Barnett, (1929 – 2012) a theoretical chemist and computer scientist, was a researcher at the Royal Radar Establishment and in 2012 was a significant contributor to this Wikipedia Malvern article. Sir Charles Hastings (1794 – 1866) was a medical surgeon and founder of the British Medical Association, spent his final years at Hastings House in the suburb of Barnards Green.

Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:54, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Removing the referenced names has resulted in citation errors being introduced, even though the reference has been removed (see warnings at bottom of list of references). I had this after removing Thomas Attwood. Having read the explanation for the cite error, perhaps it's because the deleted references all had "ref names". Anyway, take a look. I had to go to text editing, find Attwood's reference and deleted (for what seems a second time). Rupples (talk) 12:03, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

@Rupples This is because the article uses an acceptable but more rare system for parking the sources which can be confusing to those unfamiliar with it. Someone a long time ago thought it was a good idea at the time, but later editors don't see it and use the standard inline cite templates. What we have now is a mix of systems. It didn't cross my mind when I removed the the names from the list. I'll do it now. The system is actually a good one for long articles. Every ref is a named ref and the actual sources are in the 'References' section, neatly in alphabetical order so that they can be easily located and reedited or updated.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:07, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

(but to do that nowadays, we would use {{sfnp}}, which is far more civilised. See e.g., Robert Hooke. Just saying, I have no plans to do anything about it.) 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 15:39, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

@Kudpung. Replacing the list format with prose looks a big improvement. Rupples (talk) 12:31, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

@Rupples I'm waiting on a further comment from @JMF but I think we'll probably have to stick with the section I drafted above. I'll have to copyedit it first if we decide to use it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:10, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

We agree Malvern has too many notable persons listed, whereas Coventry#Notable people associated with Coventry - jeez! Interesting that Manchester, a featured article, has eschewed a Notable people section entirely. Rupples (talk) 13:50, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Coventry is not a GA - and won't be with that mess of detail. Manchester may not have a notables section but it has a huge list of similar items here. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:18, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Article review

It has been a while since this article has been reviewed, so I took a look and noticed lots of uncited statements, including entire paragraphs. Should this article go to WP:GAR? Z1720 (talk) 04:07, 10 January 2026 (UTC)

@Z1720. Malvern is not a town where much happens that attracts new content. The content has not changed significantly since passing a very strict GA review (almost to FA demands) in 2011. It also underwent an excellent peer review a couple of years later by Tim riley in preparation for FA but unfortunately due to natural reasons of editor availability the FA nomination was not followed through. The article is far from abandoned and is regularly curated and updated as the history and page analysis will show. At one stage, I split a section off to create Places of worship in Malvern, Worcestershire because I felt it was getting rather long. As we did for Worcester, England, and what I have done more recently for Berkhamsted I am considering splitting most of the long history section into a separate article anyway later this year and I have it in mind to ask Peterkingiron if he had some thoughts on this. I think we can safely say that this article is in safe hands and that any issues will be addressed without the need for delisting. Plenty of other Wikipedia articles are in need of much more TLC. - like Berkhamsted was when I rescued it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:05, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

@Kudpung: Yes, the 20th century section probably needs a couple additional lines, and the Demographic section needs to be updated with 2021 stats. However, I'm more concerned with uncited statements: a couple years ago, the GA criteria updated its citation criteria so that information needed to be citation in the same paragraph that the information was in (in other words, there needs to be a citation at the end of every paragraph, minimum, that verifies the information that preceeds the it). The article currently has uncited statements: are you interested in addressing these? Z1720 (talk) 16:08, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

@Z1720. Thanks for pointing out 2b. It's been a while since I did any GA reviewing myself. I was unaware of the change. As the article's regular curator I most certainly will address these points, and an update to the demographics is something I have already scheduled to do. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:42, 14 January 2026 (UTC)

• @Kudpung: Are you still interested in working on this? Z1720 (talk) 23:37, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

I have been the regular curator and main author (time permitting) of this article since I took it from this nearly 20 years ago, through its GA in 2010 to its present scope and size. It is one of my proudest achievements among the 100+ articles I have written, which also include most of the articles in the Malvern category along with my other major developments of Wikipedia policies.

The next part of the project on this article is to split much of the history section off into a separate article and I am currently working on a draft of this. These things take time and also depend on my access to the information I need.

• I would also point out that the indiscriminate cn tagging in this diff by a possibly less experienced user is for content of the kind for which a source is required to prove that a circle is round, a mountain is steep, or that water is wet, but I'll address them if it is possible.

• Naturally I am still interested in working on this but it's not something I can dedicate full time to, sometimes RL and health issues get in the way, but it is also still my intention to get it to FA. Unfortunately, many of the users who helped on the GA have now passed away. Please allow time for these things to develop. Thanks. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:15, 18 March 2026 (UTC)

• @Kudpung: Are you still interested in working on this? Z1720 (talk) 02:18, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

  I am about halfway through splitting the long history section off into a stand-alone article. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:39, 13 May 2026 (UTC)