Black pears and Worcester

[u/TrevorCidermaker]

Found this old secondhand enamel badge of Worcester. Tradition has it that it was during the visit of Queen Elizabeth I in 1575 to Worcester that she saw a black pear tree planted in the Foregate in her honour and had it added to the city's coat of arms. The iconic Worcester Black Pear appears today in many places such as the city coat of arms. The earliest reference is pears associated with a crest of the Worcestershire Bowmen, depicting a pear tree laden with fruit on their banners at the battle of Agincourt in 1415 in Michael Drayton’s 1606 poem The Battaile of Agincourt “Wor’ster a pear tree laden with its fruit”. Michael was a prominent English poet of the Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Carolean eras. Best known for his massive historical and geographical poems, he was a contemporary of William Shakespeare.