Where to Stay in Gloucester, England

What is Gloucester known for?

The cathedral town of Gloucestershire keeps its old churches and priories among the streets, and its restored docks hold the Gloucester Waterways Museum by the water. The Museum of Gloucester tells the deeper story. Water shaped the whole town.

What are the main landmarks in Gloucester?

The cathedral crowns the heart of Gloucester. Around it stand the old churches, St Nicholas', St Mary de Crypt, and St Mary de Lode, with the ruins of St Oswald's Priory nearby. The docks are the other draw.

The Gloucester Waterways Museum fills the old warehouses by the canal, and the Museum of Gloucester and the Soldiers of Gloucestershire Museum hold the town's long past.

What is the history of Gloucester?

Gloucester began as Glevum, a Roman colonia on the Severn. The legions built a walled town at the lowest bridging point of the river, and it held that role for centuries. Walls and gates ringed the Roman core for generations.

Saxon Gloucester rose over the old streets, and St Oswald's Priory was raised to hold a royal saint's bones. The Normans came and set Gloucester Castle by the river to guard the crossing. The great cathedral made the medieval city.

Its river carried the trade. Kings held court and were crowned in Gloucester, and pilgrims came to its shrine, filling the town around the churches of St Mary de Crypt and St Mary de Lode. Trade ran on the Severn below.

Much later the docks were dug to bring ships inland, and the Gloucester Waterways Museum stands among the old warehouses. The Museum of Gloucester keeps the long record, from Glevum to the quays.

Where is Gloucester?

The Severn runs wide past Gloucester. The city sits on the river's east bank in the vale between the Cotswold hills and the Forest of Dean, low and flat where the tidal water still reaches. Meadows flood along the banks.

The river tied the town to the sea.

What is the climate of Gloucester?

Gloucester lies in the mild west of England. Wet, grey winters give way to warm, changeable summers, and rain falls through much of the year off the Severn and the western sea. The river can flood in a hard winter.

Snow rarely lasts on the vale.

How do you get to Gloucester?

Gloucester sits on the roads to Wales and the west. The motorway and the main line run past the city between the Midlands and the South West, and rail links reach out along the Severn valley. Buses serve the Cotswold towns around.

Most arrive by road or rail, into the old river city.