Express By Holiday Inn Hotel Gloucester

Cathedral Gargoyles

by Balam

Gloucester Cathedral has some really fantastic Gargoyles, They look like they have crept down from their rooftop perches to steal some musical instruments which they now hold tightly while looking down from the Cathedral's gutters.

More to do, more info

by jayhawk2000

Other sights to visit include the House of the Tailor of Gloucester, a twee shop said to inspire Beatrix Potter's tale of the same name.

At Eastgate there is an interpretive centre about the old Roman defences.

The Guildhall is a concert hall with an art gallery, cafe and cinema.

The City Museum & Art Gallery has a wide range of exhibits, from fossils and Roman artefacts to paintings by Gainsborough and Turner.

At the Gloucester Folk Museum you can learn about local trades.

There is a farmers market on the third Friday of each month at Westgate.

For more information on visiting Gloucester, click on over to www.gloucester.gov.uk, email your queries to tourism@gloucester.gov.uk or ring 0145 239 6572.

Blackfriars Abbey

by Balam

Built between 1239 and 1270 Blackfriars is one of the most complete Dominican Priories to survive from the Middle Ages.
The Dominican of Black Friars order was founded in 1217 by St Dominic and they first arrived in England in 1221. The Friars were essentially teachers and evangelists and they either travelled alone around the countyside or lived in urban friaries.
The Gloucester Black Friars were founded in 1239 on a site once a part of the bailey of the old Norman castle.
In accordance with their role as teachers the friars at Gloucester established a library, which is the oldest surviving in Britain today.
The friary prospered for the next two centuriesbut was in a steady decline by the early sixteenth century with the former complement of between thirty or forty friars reduced to a prior and only six brethren living in extreme poverty by the time of the Dissolution.

In 1539 Sir Thomas Bell who was a wealthy Gloucester 'capper and clothier', purchased the property for £240.5s.4d. He remodelled the church turning it into a private house with the other buildings being converted for cloth munutacture and providing employment for over 300 local people.

Sir Thomas Bell died in 1566 followed a year later by his wife and the property passed to the Dennis family until the late seventeenth century and by the 1930s Bell’s mansion had been divided into two separate houses along with various industrial units.
The buildings have since been restored and opened to the public.

When we visited in Febuary 2011 the Abbey buildings were undergoing restoration and it was closed.

Adult £3.50 per ticket
Child £3.00 per ticket

English Heritage Members £3.00 per ticket

Gloucester

by Andrew_W_K

"Gloucester city"

What an interesting city Gloucester is. Once one of the largest ports in England and yet it's nowhere near the sea, regarded as part of the Cotswolds yet it sits on the plane of the Severn Valley.
Gloucester is never what you expect it to be and yet it remains a fascinating destination for tourists.
Full of unexpected quirks like the Old Father Time clock that sits above Baker's jewellers, a Victorian treasure that lives on for people to enjoy.