Gloucester Cathedral

One of Britain’s greatest buildings, Gloucester Cathedral sits in the centre of the Roman built city of Glevum.  Originally an Abbey dedicated to St Peter, it sits on a green which was the former Abbey’s graveyard.  The buildings that surround it were built in the 17^th and 18^th centuries; they are still in use today.  This cathedral church was built by medieval monks and masons in around 679AD.  Its exuberant medieval carving and stunning stained glass windows which shine with jewell like colours, make this magnificent building a must see if you’re ever in the City of Gloucester.

Gloucester Cathedral is a fine example of English Gothic architecture.  It is particularly known for its nave and its fan vaulting.  The stunning South Transept is the earliest surviving example of a style of architecture known as English Perpendicular.

The Cathedral’s vision is to be in tune with heaven and also in touch with daily life.  It has a rich musical tradition and its acoustics are awesome; there are many concerts here where the amazing sounds which are enhanced by some even more amazing architecture will simply blow you away.

It has been a place of Christian worship for over 1,500 years.  It was formerly an abbey before Henry VIII dissolved it in 1540. Then in 1541 Henry VIII created the Diocese of Gloucester and it became a cathedral.

Dedicated to Saint Peter, Gloucester cathedral has played an important part in the history of England.

Originally founded by the Romans Gloucester became an important city in AD97 under its Emperor Nerva and it was known as Colonia Glevum Nervensis.  The City was granted its first charter in 1155 by Henry II and in 1216, nine year old King Henry III was crowned in the Abbey, following the death of the infamous King John.  Henry III was the only King to have been crowned outside of Westminster Abbey since the Norman Conquest.  This stained glass window commemorates his coronation.

King Edward II is buried here. Edward famously suffered a humiliating defeat to Robert the Bruce at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314.  He died in 1327 at nearby Berkley castle in suspicious circumstances (it is a popular belief that he was murdered by way of a red hot poker being pushed into his bottom).  His tomb in Gloucester Cathedral later became an important pilgrimage destination and of course, an important source of income for the cathedral.

The great east window was completed and installed in the 1350s.  It was the largest stained glass window in the world at the time.  At 22 metres in height and 12 metres wide, it is the size of a standard tennis court.  During WWII it was painstakingly dismantled piece by piece and stored in the crypt for safekeeping.  One of the panels is said to depict the earliest images of the game of golf.  This dates from 1350 which is more than 300 years earlier than the earliest image of golf from Scotland.  Another panel shows people playing a ball game which has been suggested as one of the earliest images of medieval football.

This small chapel within a wooden screen is dedicated to St John the Baptist; you can see the initials JB.  It was created at the time of the last Abbot in the early 16^th century.

This bracket, shaped like a set square, is one of a stone mason’s most important tools for working with angles.  It also serves as a memorial to the death of an apprentice stonemason who tumbled to his death while working on the ceiling.

St Andrew’s chapel is completely different from anything else in the cathedral.  It is decorated with Victorian neo-Gothic style paintings.  Painted in the 1860s by a local artist Thomas Gambier Parry, the theme follows Jesus’s decipleships.  There are numerous decorative fish here, not only a symbol of the church but also a reminder that Andrew and Peter were fishermen.

These two large wooden cope chests date from the 15^th century and were used to store the embroidered vestments worn by the Abbot, Prior and clergy on Feast Days and Festivals.

This is the West window. It depicts the birth and baptism of Jesus Christ and was created in 1861.

Some of the area’s most important people are buried in the Cathedral:

This monument is made from coloured bog oak. It is of Robert Curthose, eldest son of William the Conqueror. Robert was a great warrior and lead the first of the crusades.  He also waged war on his father and his younger brother, Henry I, because he believed that he should be the rightful King of England. He ended his days a prisoner in Cardiff Castle but remained a benefactor of the Abbey, thus his remains are interred here.

Here lies William Warburton one of the Bishops of Gloucester who was also a solicitor, writer and a literacy critic who edited some of the works of his friends, Alexander Pope and William Shakespeare.

The famous physician, Edward Jenner, is also buried in the cathedral. Born in nearby Berkley in 1749, Jenner famously pioneered the vaccine against smallpox.

Here lie the remains of King Osric, the founder of the original Abbey.

John Wakeman was the last Abbot of Tewkesbury at the dissolution of the monasteries and one year later he became the first Bishop of Gloucester when Henry VIII created the diocese.

The south trancept contains the tomb of Abbot Seabroke, who commissioned the rebuilding of the tower in the 1450s.

The church is dedicated to Saint Peter and the Holy and Indivisible Trinity.  Services are held every day and every 30 minutes the priest holds prayer sessions in the nave for visitors to the cathedral.  Daily services have been the tradition here since 679AD when Osric, Prince of Mercia, founded a monastic community of men and women and appointed his sister, Kyneburga as its first Abbess.  Here, in the south transept is a modern statue of her, carved in 2013.

The majestic cathedral you see here today dates to 1089 and is attributed to Serlo, who was the abbot of the Benedictine community here.  The East End was dedicated in 1100 and the nave was completed 30 years later.

The nave has hardly changed since it was built almost a thousand years ago.  The West End is built in the Romanesque style; its sturdy rounded pillars and semi-circular arches were inspired by the monumental buildings of ancient Rome.  Indeed, some of the pillars include some genuine roman stones and bricks.

In 1122 a serious fire brought the wooden roof crashing down.  It was later rebuilt in stone.

The vault dates to 1242 and was built in the “Early English” style which was developed during the long reign of King Henry III (1216-1272).  He was crowned here in 1216 aged just 9 years old.  He was the last British King to have been crowned outside of Westminster Abbey.

The outer of the South side of the church was rebuilt in the early 1500s in a style known as “Decorated”.  It has pointed windows with lovely butterfly tracery and flying buttresses.  There are around 11,000 ballflowers on the inside and the outside of each window; it’s estimated that  each one would have taken around 3 hours to carve.

The two westernmost bays of the nave were rebuilt in the Perpendicular style in the 1430s.  Thus all four styles of English church architecture are visible in the nave; Romanesque (Norman), Early English, Decorated and Perpendicular.

The Quire is separated from the nave by a stone screen built in the 1820s which supports the cathedral’s organ.  The roof was raised in the 14^th century to allow the third storey of large windows, and the East end was structurally altered to create the new Great East Window.  The vaulted ceiling is magnificent with its three central ribs and over 400 roof bosses in an unusual flying span that gives the impression of a continuous pattern for its entire length.  Their decorative design is a masterpiece in itself and the same motifs can be seen repeated by the stonemasons, wood carvers and stained glass artists throughout the cathedral.  There are 58 monks’ stalls.  Although it has been sympathetically restored in the late 1860s, the tiles in the sanctuary are original and date back to the 15^th century.

Music has always been important in the life of Gloucester Cathedral.  After Henry VIII dissolved St Peter’s Abbey, he was careful to provide the continuation of music by creating the King’s School in the new Cathedral.  Generations of choristers have been educated there.

The organ sits on the stone screen that separates the nave from the quire.  It is a 20^th century instrument but it is housed in the original ornately decorated wooden casing which dates back to 1666.  Gloucester Cathedral is the ancestral home to the annual Three Choirs Festival which is hosted in turn by Gloucester, Hereford and Worcester cathedrals.  It began in Gloucester over 300 years ago.

A spiral staircase in the North Trancept leads you do the Tribune gallery.  It sits above the Quire and as well as providing spectacular views of the quire below it is where you’ll find a number of interesting and fun activities which tell you about the cathedral’s history and its conservation.  There is also a Whispering Gallery which tracks behind the organ.  Its peculiar construction enables a whisper to be heard from the opposite side to where you are standing.  We tried it out, of course, but we got it wrong.  Martyn followed me into the corridor and of course we could hear each other whispering.  What one of us should have done was to stay at one end of the corridor while the other one walked through to the other side and then whispered to each other!  Oh well, lesson learned!

The lady Chapel is unique in design and decoration.  Its vaulted roof mimics the one in the Quire.  It is a tranquil space but it was vandalized during the civil war.  The scars can be seen on the reredos screen behind the High Altar.  The stunning stained glass windows were made by the famous arts and crafts designer Christopher Whall in the early 1900s. They depict the theme of redemption.

The stained glass in the Thomas Chapel is stunning; they were created by Tom Denny in 1989 to commemorate the 900^th anniversary of the foundation of the Abbey in 1089.  The theme is “Praise” and refers to the mantra that all creatures are created by God to offer thanks and praise to their creator and was inspired by Psalm 148.

The cathedral has many connections with the military and the memorial chapel is testament to that.  The modern carving in the central niche is by Rory Young and shows the Roman centurion who was present at the crucifixion, whose words “Truly this mas was the son of god” are incorporated on the altar.  Books of remembrance record the names of the 1004 Men of Gloucestershire who died in the two world wars.  Other books record the names of those Gloster men who died in subsequent conflicts.

The cloisters are undoubtedly one of the most beautiful in the world.  They are especially famous for their exquisite fan vaulted ceilings; an imaginative new style developed by stonemasons right here in the 1350s.  The cloister’s east walk is the oldest surviving anywhere in the world.  The other three walks were completed in the early 1400s.

They were originally built to house the monks, providing them with a space to live, work and meditate.  Here, in the south side, you can see the 22 carrels where the monks would have worked and studied. The south side of the cloister is also home to 12 panels and roundels of Tudor heraldic glass.  This lavatorium is in the north walk and has a beautiful set of stained glass windows. It also has its own scaled down fan vault.

There is also a garden called the cloister garth.  It’s a lovely open space and was a place for getting fresh air and exercise; it also housed the abbey’s well.

Gloucester cathedral’s iconic Tower is visible for miles around in every direction.  It is 225ft high and weighs around 6,000 tons.  Norman foundations provide the base from which three tiers of decorated stone rise up to house the 4 castellated pinnacles on the top.

The tower is home to the cathedral’s 12 bells.  The oldest dates back to before 1420; in fact they are all older than the present tower. The biggest bell is called Great Peter and is the largest medieval bell in Great Britain.  It weighs 3 tons and is the hour bell.  It is also rung before each main service.  The bells are rung full circle every Sunday.  You can join a tour of the bell tower, but we didn’t have time on the day we went.  If you do, be warned – not only will you need a very good head for heights, there are also 269 steps to climb.

You can also book a tour of the crypt and the library.  The library holds all of the monastic books as well as a small volume written by Gloucester’s monks in the 1390s.  It is a real treasure that tells of their daily lives as well as the history of the building. The crypt provides the foundations upon which stand the Quire, the Great East Window and the Tower and houses the interesting archaeological artifacts from the cathedral’s past.

Today the cathedral has a vibrant and open worshipping community.  It offers a wide variety of activities and community events.  The last time I was in the city centre it played host to the Knife Angel; a poignant and moving tribute to the victims of knife crime.  I’ll pop a link to the video I made of that in the description box below.  The cathedral also provides training in heritage skills, conservation projects and of course, music.  It has also been the setting for several on screen movies and TV series; including Doctor Who and Harry Potter to name a couple.

We really hope you’ve enjoyed wandering around Gloucester Cathedral with us today and learning a bit about its history and its fabulous architecture. If you’ve enjoyed this video, please hit the like button and drop a comment below to tell us what you liked the most.  If you’d like to see more of the places that we visit and learn about their history too why not consider subscribing to our channel.  You can, of course, follow us on social media too; you’ll find us on Facebook and Instagram.  Thanks for joining us today and we hope to see you on our next adventure.