Heritage

Gloucester Museums & Galleries

Take a step back in time and visit one of Gloucester's fascinating and captivating museums ranging from travelling with dinosaurs, seeing life in Victorian times to discovering all about life on the waterways.

Visit Gloucester City Museum and Art Gallery to sample delights from the past.  See a range of unique Roman sculptures, votive tablets, ceramic collections and a fine range of dinosaur fossils.

Set on three floors of a splendid Tudor and Jacobean timber framed building you can take a look at social history, crafts and trades all based around the history of Gloucester from the 16th to the 20th century at the Gloucester Folk Museum.

Nature in Art is the world's first museum dedicated exclusively to fine, decorative and applied art, all inspired by nature.  Housed in a Georgian mansion dating from the mid 1700's, the museum has a vibrant programme from temporary exhibitions to artists in residence.

Visit the Soldiers of Gloucestershire Museum and experience what it was like for soldiers and thier families throughout the last three hundred years.

Visit the Waterways Museum at Gloucester Docks.  The museum shows how it would have been to live and work on Britain's inland waterways.  Find out through interactive displays, recordings of former workers and archive film footage and bring the children along for many fun filled activities for the whole family.

Gloucester's Historic Venues 

Gloucester Cathedral is one of the finest Cathedrals in England and rated as one of the most beautiful in the world.

This amazing 900-year-old Norman Cathedral is the centre point of the City and has a number of Royal connections as well as being one of Europe's enduring architectural beauties.  Visit the Cathedral and see the world's first fan-vaulted Cloister.

Take a look at the Eastgate Viewing Chamber, an underground chamber with the remains of a a Roman and Norman East Gate and defences from AD68.

The New Inn has been described as the finest example of a medieval gallaried inn to be seen in Britain today.  Much of the original structure remains together with its rich carved detail.

The superb collection of warehouses within Gloucester Docks owe their existance to the corn trade of the nineteenth century when huge quantaties of wheat, oats , barley and maize were shipped into the port from Ireland, Northern Europe, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.  These warehouses are still visable in their entirety today.

Churches and Priories in Gloucester

Blackfriars Priory, with its magnificent timbered roof is one of the most complete examples of a medieval Dominican Priory in Britain.  The original medieval cloister, completed in 1239, includes the Scriptorium where the monks once workedover 750 years ago.  This is believed to be England's oldest surviving library building.

Take a visit to Llanthony Priory an Augustinian Priory founded in 1136, St oSwalds Priory and Greyfriars, one of Gloucester's monastries supported by Edward II.

St Michael's Tower is a grade II listed building and a scheduled monument dating back to 1465 containing many original features including a fine vaulted ceiling, a beautiful stained glass window and more.  The Tower is now a heritage centre.

St Mary de Crypt Church has many historical associations.  George Whitfield preached his first sermon their.  Robert Raikes, the founder of the Sunday School was also a native of the parish.  St Mary de Lode is the City's oldest parish church and according to local legend it was the burial place of Lucius, the King of Britain in the second century.