GLOUCESTER
Gloucester was founded initially as a Roman fortress at Kingsholm, & was granted the title of Colonia Nerviana Glevensis. Colonia was the highest status a Roman provincial town could attain. About AD 900 Queen Aethelflaeda, daughter of Alfred the Great revitalized the current street plan is a direct legacy.
Edward the Confessor held court at Christmas in Gloucester, a custom upheld by William the Conqueror. The Domesday Book was commissioned at the Christmas Parliament in 1085. In 1155 Henry II granted the city a royal charter, acknowledging the City’s equal status with London & Winchester. In 1216 Henry III was crowned in Gloucester, the only monarch since the Norman Conquest to be crowned outside London.
The tomb of Edward II became a tourist attraction. It drew pilgrims to the abbey in vast numbers. The city’s oldest inn, the New Inn was built around 1450 specifically to cater for that trade.
Gloucester played an important part in the English Civil War. Had Gloucester fallen quickly or had the King ignored the city, the royalists would have probably regained London & with it, national control. Georgian times the city became world-renowed for pin manufacturing & continued to be famous for bell founding. John Stafford-Smith, born in Gloucester in 1750, composed the tune that is used for the American National Anthem.
People
In 1897 Beatrix Potter sketched the images for her story, The Tailor of Gloucester. The tale is based on a true story about John Pritchard, a tailor whose shop occupied 45 Westgate Street. Hubert Cecil Booth, the inventor of the vacuum cleaner, was born in Gloucester in 1871. C S Rolls, of Rolls Royce fame was hit by his own car in the courtyard of the New Inn in 1896. The city went on to play a vitally important role in British industry, with aircraft production, cotton motorcycles, match manufacturing, railway & agricultural equipment.
The Victorian physicist, Charles Wheatstone, was born in Gloucester in 1802. He is best known for his work on telegraphy & also as the inventor of the ‘Magic Harp’ concertina & tickertape. The ‘Wheatstone Bridge’ (electronic bridge) was named after him.
The Gloucester & Sharpness Canal
Gloucester was given full status as a port by Elizabeth I in 1580, an action that ultimately led to the establishment of the Docks. The Gloucester & Sharpness Canal was completed in 1827; the waterways was then the longest, deepest & widest ship canal in Britain. In Victorian times the Docks took their present shape with the building of fifteen Victorian warehouses standing proud guardians to Britain’s most inward port, which you can still see today. More than that they were built to house the corn which was brought in by ships coming from Ireland, North Europe, Mediterranean & the Black Sea. In its heyday, the docks formed the gateway for waterborne traffic travelling into the Midlands, when tall ships & barges queued for miles along the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal.
These outstanding Victorian Warehouse Docks now star in numerous period films & television dramas. It was chosen as the set for the immensely successful TV series ‘The Onedin Line’. Recently, Gloucester Cathedral Cloisters stared in the even more successful Harry Potter movies.
Today, Gloucester Docks is better known for its award winning museums, attractions, shops & restaurants, which create a unique tourist & leisure destination. Visit The National Waterways Museum which follows 200 years of life & development of Britain’s inland waterways. Visitors can not only see how to drive a barge through a lock, but also view how canal families lived & worked on the barges. Furthermore Gloucester Docks is ideally located just five minutes walk from the city centre & Cathedral.