Right at the heart of the county, both geographically and politically, WORCESTER is something of an architectural hotchpotch, its half-timbered Tudor and stone Georgian buildings standing cheek by jowl with some fairly charmless modern developments. Postwar clumsiness apart, the biggest single influence on the city has always been the River Severn, which flows along Worcester's west flank. It was the river that drew the Romans here and river-trade that made it an important settlement as early as Saxon times. The river's major drawback is its propensity to breach its banks, inundating parts of the city in murky water, though this has at least limited development along the riverside, leaving clear space to view the mighty cathedral , Worcester's star turn.