Great Malvern, and the surrounding area of the Malvern Hills, have enjoyed a long and colourful history. You can learn more at the Malvern Museum of Local History.
600-800 million years ago - the igneous rocks that make up the core geology of the Malvern Hills form.
400 million years ago - the Silurian limestone that forms the plains to the west of the Malvern Hills is laid down.
300 million years ago - upheavals lead to the formation of the ridge of the Malvern Hills.
1000 BC - Bronze Age settlements on the hills.
250 BC - La Tène people settled or passed through the area.
1060s - A motte-and-bailey fortress was built on top of the Iron Age fortress at British Camp.
1085 - work begins on the Malvern Priory, a Benedictine monastery in what will become Great Malvern.
1360s-90s - William Langland writes about the Malvern Hills in Piers Plowman.
1614 - The Elms School was founded in Colwall, making it the oldest preparatory school in England.
1622 - Holy Well established a source for bottling water.
1797 - Three Counties Agricultural Society founded and held first show (now the Three Counties Show).
1815 - Building at St Ann's Well erected.
1842 - James Gulley sets up his first water cure clinic, establishing Malvern as a health spa town.
1849 - Charles Darwin first visits Malvern to convalesce.
1850 - Burrow brothers buy out Lea and Perrins and expand the bottling business.
1851 - J. Schweppe & Co present a bottle of "malvern" spring water to Queen Victoria at the Great Exhibition.
1851 - Anne Darwin, daughter of Charles Darwin, dies and is buried at Great Malvern Priory.
1857 - Florence Nightingale visits Malvern after the Crimean War to take the water cure.
1860 - Great Malvern Railway station opens.
1865 - Malvern College founded.
1869 - Prof Mark Roget dies and is buried in West Malvern.
1879 - the current (and restored) organ in the Great Malvern Priory is installed.
1884 - First Malvern Hills Act helps pave the way for conservation of the rapidly developing area.
1889 - Edward Elgar first lives in Great Malvern.
1893 - Malvern Girls College was founded.
1897 - The Abbey School locates to Malvern.
1899 - Edward Elgar lives at Craeg Lea, Wells Road, Great Malvern.
1900 - Lady Emily Foley dies
1902 - St James' School, founded a few years earlier, locates in West Malvern.
1908 - The Abbey School moves to Malvern Wells.
1909 - Morgan Motor Company founded.
1911 - Dyson Perrins opens the Malvern Community Hospital
1913 - C.S. Lewis was enrolled at Malvern College.
1914 - George Mallory and Arthur Benson go on an outing to climb Bredon Hill together
1929 - First Malvern Drama Festival takes place.
1932 - W.H. Auden starts teaching English at the Downs School, Colwall.
1934 - Edward Elgar dies and is buried in Little Malvern.
1942 - Telecommunications Research Establishment relocated to the Malvern College to develop RADAR.
1949 - C.S. Lewis begins writing The Chronicles of Narnia, and spending time in Malvern with J.R.R. Tolkien.
1956 - Malvern hosts the Shaw Centenary Week.
1957 - Three Counties Agricultural Society acquires the Malvern Showground site.
1958 - Charles William Dyson Perrins dies.
1959 - Designation as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
1965 - Malvern Festival Theatre Trust is set up.
1971 - last of the quarries closed and restored.
1971 - Malvern Instruments Ltd founded
1974 - Malvern Hills District Council forms, although boundaries changed since.
1984 - Gullet Quary restored back to nature.
1989 - Beacon café destroyed by an electrical fire.
1990 - The first year of the annual Autumn in Malvern Festival
1992 - Ellerslie Girls' School and Hillstone Prep merge with Malvern College.
1995 - Malvern Shopping Park was constructed.
2000 - Malvern Hills Science Park officially opened to promote high technology R&D businesses in the area.
2001 - DERA, the government research establishment is privatised and re-branded Qinetiq.
2002 - Geoffrey Drummer, inventor of the concept of integrated circuits dies and is buried in Malvern.
2006 - Malvern Girls College and St James's School merge to form Malvern St James.
2008 - The Malvern Hills Community Foundation set up to grow an endowment fund to support charitable activities in the Malvern area.
2011 - Malvern Cyber Security Cluster forms to support and promote the growing cyber security industry in the region.
2012 - The Wyche Innovation Centre was founded in the former Skot Transformers building to provide an incubation space for small businesses and entrepreneurs in the town.
2012 - The first annual Malvern Festival of Innovation is held
2012 - Great Malvern officially twins with the spa town Marianske Lazne in the Czech Republic.
2015 - Route to the Hills partnership project starts to promote Malvern's rich historic and cultural offer to people of all ages.