The Black Friars, or Dominican Friary, occupied the site between Broad Street and the City Walls at the Butts, and from the Sheep Market west to Dolday. Their habit was a black cloak and hood over a white cassock. They came to England in 1221, but when they settled in Worcester is not known.
The Beauchamp's of Warwick made an establishment here in 1348, in the area we now call the Black Friars, but then called Belasses. The Friars Almonry remains of old buildings until the development in the 1960s which swept it all away. A dole was given out in Dolday until the 1914 War, but whether this was a parochial one, or one with an even older origin is not known.