Gloucester Places to Visit
Many quaint gabled and timbered houses survive from earlier periods of the city's history. At the point of intersection of the four principal streets stood the Tolsey or town hall, replaced by a modern building in 1894. None of the old public buildings are left except for the
New Inn in Northgate Street, a timbered house, strong and massive with external galleries and courtyards; it was built in 1450 for the pilgrims to Edward II's shrine, by Abbot Sebroke.
There are a large number of churches and in the past there were also many dissenting chapels. It may have been the old proverb, "as sure as God's in Gloucester," that provoked Oliver Cromwell to declare that the city had "more churches than godliness." The first Sunday school in England was held in Gloucester, founded by
Robert Raikes in 1780. Four churches are of special interest:
St Mary de Lode, Archdeacon Street, Gloucester, GL1 2QT, with a Norman tower and chancel, and a monument of
Bishop Hooper, on the site of a Roman temple which became the first Christian church in Britain;
St Mary de Crypt, a cruciform structure of the 12th century, with later additions and a beautiful and lofty tower; the remains of the church of St Michael, said to have been connected with the ancient abbey of St Peter; and
St Nicholas church, originally of Norman erection, and possessing a tower and other portions of later date. In the neighbourhood of St Mary de Crypt are the slight remains of Greyfriars and Blackfriars monasteries, and also of the city wall. Early vaulted cellars remain under the Fleece and Saracen's Head inns.
There are three endowed schools: The King's School, refounded by Henry VIII of England as part of the cathedral establishment; the school of St Mary de Crypt, founded by Dame Joan Cooke in the same reign (1539); and Sir Thomas Rich's Blue Coat Hospital for boys (1666). At the Crypt school the famous preacher George Whitefield (1714-1770) was educated, and he preached his first sermon in the church.
The noteworthy modern buildings include the museum and school of art and science, the county gaol (on the site of a Saxon and Norman castle), the Shire Hall and the Whitefield memorial church. A park in the south of the city contains a spa, a chalybeate spring having been discovered in 1814. West of this, across the canal, are the remains (a gateway and some walls) of Llanthony Priory, a cell of the mother abbey in the vale of Ewyas, Monmouthshire, which in the reign of Edward IV became the secondary establishment.
Kingsholm is the home of Gloucester RFC, founded in 1873, one of England's top rugby union clubs.
Meadow Park is the home of Gloucester City A.F.C. ("The Tigers") of the Southern League Premier Division.
King's Square is at the heart of the City Centre and occupies what was once a cattle market and bus station. Officially opened in 1972, it was the centrepiece of a radical redesign of the city, The Jellicoe Plan, which was first proposed in 1961.
Many of the features of the redevelopment have since been dismantled; the brutalist concrete fountains in the middle of the square have gone and the overhead roadways which linked three multi storey car parks around the centre have been either closed or dismantled. The present main bus station received a Civic Trust Award in 1963 but is now tatty and unwelcoming. An indoor market opened in Eastgate Street in 1968, followed shortly afterwards by the Eastgate Shopping Centre. Gloucester Leisure Centre opened on the corner of Eastgate Street and Bruton Way in September 1974 and was redeveloped around 2003. A new railway station opened in Bruton Way in 1977, replacing one which once stood on the site now occupied by an Asda supermarket. The main shopping streets were pedestrianised in the late 1980s.
There are few tall buildings in Gloucester, the Cathedral being the most obvious. The tower of Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, constructed during the years 1970-1975, can be seen from miles around. In Brunswick Road, a brown concrete tower houses classrooms at the Gloucestershire College of Arts and Technology. The tower was added incongruously to the existing 1930s Technical College buildings in 1971. A tall block of flats stands in Columbia Close, between London Road and Kingsholm Road. It was built in 1972 and stands on what was once Columbia Street in a small district formerly known as Clapham.
Roman remains were discovered in 1974 during the construction of the Boots store on the corner of Brunswick Road and Eastgate Street. These can be viewed through a glass "ceiling" at street level. It was once possible to take tours of the underground site but the tour guide was later replaced by a "talking bollard" beside the viewing window. Parts of the city's south gate can be seen tucked away at the back of the Gloucester Furniture Exhibition Centre - a showroom on the corner of Southgate Street and Parliament Street.