Gazetteer of
British Place Names

Gloucestershire is a maritime county in the south-west of England. Gloucestershire has three distinct parts. The most celebrated is the Cotswold Hills, which cover the east of the county and spread into neighbouring counties. The Cotswolds are famed for the beauty of their villages and the landscape. Cotswold stone is used ubiquitously producing picture-postcard, honey-coloured towns and villages, among them being Bibury, Bourton-on-the-Water, Chipping Camden, Lower Slaughter, Stow-on-the-Wold, Stroud and Winchcombe. Cirencester was once the Roman town of Corinium. The Severn Vale by contrast is flat and shaped by the great River Severn, cutting deep into the shire: Gloucester though apparently inland is a sea port on the river, while further north is historic Tewkesbury. Cheltenham is a famous as a spa town. The city of Bristol is the county's largest centre of culture, employment and education. Bristol is split between Gloucestershire and Somerset with the larger part, north of the old course of the Avon, in Gloucestershire. The Severn Vale is dotted with picturesque villages. West of the Severn is the Forest of Dean, one of the largest surviving ancient woodlands in Britain.

Place Type: Historic County
Lat, Long: 51.824407,-2.143158
Grid Reference: SO902139
Country: England

GBPNID: 305823
Entry Type: Main listing (P)
URL: https://gazetteer.org.uk/place/Gloucestershire,_305823

 Explore Gloucestershire on Wikishire

The Forest of Dean forms a roughly triangular plateau bounded by the River Wye to the west, Herefordshire to the north, the River Severn to the south, and the City of Gloucester to the east. The area has more than 40 square miles of mixed woodland; one of the largest surviving ancient woodlands in Britain. Traditionally the main sources of work have been forestry, iron working and coal mining. The decline of the latter two industries has brought profound change to the economy and way of life of the Forest.

The former mining town of Coleford lies near the Wye Valley making it a popular destination for walkers, cyclists and canoeists. Nearby are Clearwell Caves. The caves have been extensively mined for iron ore and are now a mining museum. The Dean Heritage Centre, near Cinderford in the heart of the Forest, tells the story of the Forest and its people. Cinderford itself owes its existence to the development of the Cinderford Ironworks and the coalfield. At Gorsty Knoll lie the internationally important remains of the Darkhill Ironworks and the Titanic Steelworks.


Darkhill Ironworks, Gorsty Knoll

Lydney lies on the River Severn, with a harbour created when the Lydney Canal was built in 1813. Lydney Park gardens has a Roman temple dedicated to Nodens. Newent, at the northern edge of the Forest, was once a mediæval market and fair town. It has a stilted Market House and many other historic buildings.


Lock gates at Lydney Harbour

The River Severn enters Gloucestershire just west of Tewkesbury. The Severn Valley in Gloucestershire is broad and green, dotted with picturesque villages. The River is tidal below Gloucester. As the river opens into the Severn Estuary, Gloucestershire holds both banks as far as the Wye (north bank) and Avon (south bank).

Tewkesbury features many notable mediæval and Tudor buildings, but its major claim to fame is Tewkesbury Abbey, a fine Norman abbey church, originally part of a monastery. The village of Deerhurst has two Anglo-Saxon gems. St Mary's Priory Church was built in the 8th century and is considered a major Anglo-Saxon monument. Odda's Chapel is an 11th-century chantry chapel which became part of a farmhouse for 200 years before its rediscovery in the 19th century. Ashleworth Tithe Barn (NT) is a large 15th-century tithe barn located at Ashleworth, standing close to the River Severn south of Tewkesbury.


Odda's Chapel, Deerhurst

Cheltenham became famous as a spa town following the discovery of mineral springs in 1716. The town is known for its Regency architecture and the many cultural festivals it hosts. Cheltenham Racecourse has a scenic location in a natural amphitheatre, just below the escarpment of the Cotswold Edge. The Cheltenham Festival, held in March, is one of the major events of the British sporting calendar.


Pittville Pump Room, Cheltenham

The cathedral city of Gloucester was founded in AD 97 by the Romans as Colonia Glevum Nervens. In 1216 Henry III, aged only ten years, was crowned with a gilded iron ring in the Chapter House of Gloucester Cathedral. Gloucester Cathedral originates in the foundation of an abbey dedicated to Saint Peter in 681. It is the burial place of King Edward II and Walter de Lacy. Gloucester is a port, linked to the sea via the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal which runs from Gloucester's docks to the Severn Estuary.


The cloisters at Gloucester Cathedral

Westbury Court Garden (NT) is a dutch water garden in Westbury-on-Severn on the north bank of the Severn. It was laid out in 1696–1705, a rare survival not to have been replaced in the 18th century by a naturalistic garden landscape.


Westbury Court Garden

On the south bank of the Severn, below Gloucester, lies WWT Slimbridge, a wetland wildlife reserve set up in 1946 by the artist and naturalist Sir Peter Scott. Berkeley, midway between Bristol and Gloucester, is noted for Berkeley Castle, where the imprisoned Edward II was murdered. Thornbury Castle has two intricate redbrick chimneys, built in 1514, similar to those found at Hampton Court Palace. Chipping Sodbury is a delightfully pretty market town, founded in the 12th century by William Crassus. Horton Court (NT) is a stone-built 16th-century manor house in Horton, near Chipping Sodbury. The building retains a 12th-century Norman hall, and displays some of the earliest Renaissance decorative motifs used in England.


Flamingos at Slimbridge

The city of Bristol is the county's largest centre of culture, employment and education. Bristol is famously split between Gloucestershire and Somerset with the larger part, north of the old course of the Avon, in Gloucestershire. Bristol's prosperity has been linked with the sea since its earliest days. Whilst the modern port lies at Avonmouth, the old docks in the city centre have been regenerated as a centre of heritage and culture. Brunel's SS Great Britain has been restored and sits in dry dock. Bristol has a wealth of historic buildings including its 12th-century cathedral. The affluent suburb of Clifton contains many Georgian streets including the majestic Royal York Crescent. Bristol Zoo, opened in 1836, is the world's oldest provincial zoo. Clifton Suspension Bridge crosses the Avon Gorge from Gloucestershire into Somerset. Brunel's masterpiece joining, for a small toll, two great counties. Blaise Hamlet (NT), described by Pevsner as "the ne plus ultra of picturesque layout and design", was built around 1811 for retired employees of Quaker banker and philanthropist John Scandrett Harford, who owned Blaise Castle House.


The Avon Gorge with the Clifton Suspension Bridge

The eastern half of Gloucestershire lies within the Cotswold Hills. The Cotswolds are famed for the beauty of their villages and the landscape. The Cotswolds remain a wealthy sheep-farming region. Locally quarried Cotswold stone is used ubiquitously throughout the Cotswolds, producing picture-postcard, honey coloured towns and villages.

The western edge of the Cotswolds forms an escarpment known as the Cotswold Edge. The Cotswold Edge runs up south-west to north-east through Gloucestershire making a sharp dividing between the Severn Valley and the Cotswold Hills. Many towns lie along the Edge. Near to Wotton-under-Edge, at the southern end of the Edge, is Newark Park (NT) a 16th-century Tudor hunting lodge. To the north is Owlpen Manor, widely recognised as one of the most romantic of early manor houses.


Owlpen Manor

Stroud is almost surrounded by the hills at the meeting point of the Five Valleys. The village of Bishop's Cleeve stands at the foot of Cleeve Hill, the highest point in the Cotswolds and the county top. Cleeve Hill has an Iron Age hill fort on its western scarp and the Neolithic long barrow Belas Knap near the summit.


Hailes Abbey

Winchcombe may once have been the county town of its own Anglo-Saxon shire, Winchcombeshire, long since become part of Gloucestershire. Close to it are several important historic properties. Hailes Abbey (NT/EH) is a ruined Cistercian Abbey, founded in 1246 as a daughter establishment of Beaulieu Abbey. Sudeley Castle is a 15th-century castle. Its chapel is the burial place of Katherine Parr and contains her marble tomb. Stanway House is a Jacobean manor house, owned by the Earl of Wemyss and March. The 16th-century Snowshill Manor (NT) is known for its unusual collection of furniture, musical instruments, craft tools, toys, clocks, bicycles and armour, all collected by architect and craftsman Charles Paget Wade between 1900 and 1951.


Snowshill Manor

North of Winchcombe, the Cotswold Edge faces onto the Vale of Evesham where the River Avon flows down through Worcestershire to its meeting with the Severn at Tewkesbury. Along this stretch of the Edge are the villages of Weston-sub-Edge and Mickleton. Just to the north is the last hill in the Cotswolds, Meon Hill, with a huge Iron Age hill fort and stunning views across three counties. Gloucestershire stretches another few miles north into the valleys of the Avon and Stour, to within a mile or two of Stratford-upon-Avon.


Arlington Row, Bibury

Away from the Edge, the Cotswolds abound in charming towns and villages, built in Cotswold stone. Hidcote Manor Garden (NT) is one of the best-known and most influential Arts and Crafts gardens in Britain, with its linked "rooms" of hedges, rare trees, shrubs and herbaceous borders. Chipping Campden is famed for its elegant terraced High Street, dating from the 14th century to the 17th century. Stow-on-the-Wold, with its picturesque market square, lies on the Fosse Way. Lower Slaughter is built on both banks of the River Eye with small stone bridges joining the sides. There are many 16th- and 17th-century houses and the 17th-century Lower Slaugther Manor. Naunton has a famous Dovecote erected in 1660. Bourton-on-the-Water is known for its picturesque High Street, flanked by long wide greens and the River Windrush that runs through them. The sublime beauty of Bibury, including the famous Arlington Row, has made it a major tourist destination.


Lower Slaughter

Cirencester, the largest town in the Cotswolds, was once the Roman town of Corinium. Its Corinium Museum has an extensive Roman collection. The Roman amphitheatre lies in an area known as the Querns. North of the town is Chedworth Roman Villa (NT). To the west of the town is Cirencester Park, the seat of Earl Bathurst and the site of one of the finest landscape gardens in England. Thames Head, the traditional source of the Thames, lies south of Cirencester close to the Wiltshire border.


Chedworth Roman Villa

Tetbury, on the Wiltshire border, lies on the site of an ancient hill fort on which an Anglo-Saxon monastery was founded in 681. North-west of the town is Chavenage House, an Elizabethan manor house constructed of Cotswold stone, with a Cotswold stone tiled roof.

In the far south of the county, among the hills, are two famous country houses. Badminton House has been the principal seat of the Dukes of Beaufort since the late 17th century. Dyrham Park (NT) is a baroque mansion in an ancient deer park.


Dyrham Park

The region was originally inhabited by Brythonic peoples in the Iron Age. After the Romans left Britain in the early 5th century, the Brythons re-established control but the territorial divisions for the post-Roman period are uncertain. In the final quarter of the 6th century, the Saxons of Wessex began to establish control over the area. The Hwiccas who occupied the district were a West Saxon tribe, but their territory had become a dependency of Mercia in the 7th century, and was not brought under West Saxon dominion until the 9th century. Gloucestershire probably originated as a shire in the 10th century, and is mentioned by name in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1016. The ancient county of Winchcombeshire was merged into Gloucestershire in the early eleventh century. The forest district between the Wye and the Severn was also added to Gloucestershire during the 11th century, producing Gloucestershire as we know it today. The Gloucestershire Flag, the Severn Cross, was adopted in 2008. The flag comprises a cross of mid-blue, outlined in cream, against an apple green background. The blue represents the River Severn, the green represents the Golden Valley, Stroud and the cream represents Cotswold stone. Gloucestershire Day is celebrated on 21st September.


The Gloucestershire Flag in Alvington