Gloucester, the capital of Gloucestershire, a parliamentary and county borough, is pleasantly situated on the left bank of the Severn, which here becomes tidal. It is 114 miles by rail (by road 106) WNW. of London, 38 NNE. of Bristol, and 55 SSW. of Birmingham. The Caerglowi of the Britons, and Glevum of the Romans, whose cruciform ground-plan survives in the four main streets, Gleauanceastre or Gloucester was the seat successively of a nunnery (681), a monastery (821), and a great Benedictine abbey (1022). The last was suppressed in 1539; and its church two years later became the cathedral of the new see of Gloucester—a see conjoined with Bristol in 1836, but disunited in 1897, Bristol becoming again a separate see. Among its thirty-one holders have been the martyr Hooper, the Romanising Goodman (1625–56), Warburton, and Ellicott. Built between 1088 and 1498, and restored since 1853 by Mr Walter and Sir G.
G. Scott, the cathedral measures 420 feet by 144 across the transept, and though substantially Norman—crypt, chapter-house, and the interior of the nave are Norman—in general character is Perpendicular. Its pinnacled central tower (1457) rises 225 feet, and contains the 'Great Peter' bell, weighing 3 tons 2 cwt. Other noteworthy features are the lofty round piers of the nave, the east window (the largest in England—72 by 38 feet) with its splendid stained glass of 1350, the bog-oak effigy of Robert of Normandy, the exquisite canopied shrine of Edward II., the statue of Jenner, and a group by Flaxman, the lierne vaulting of choir and Lady chapel, the 'whispering gallery' in the triforium, and the matchless fan-vaulted cloisters (1351–1412; see FAN-TRACERY). At Gloucester alternately with Worcester and Hereford are held the festivals of the 'Three Choirs.' A new episcopal palace was built in 1862; the picturesque deanery is the old prior's lodge; and other buildings are the 12th-century West Gate, the New Inn (built about 1450 for pilgrims), the Tolsey or guild-hall, the shire-hall (1816), the infirmary (1755), the county lunatic asylum (1823), the King's or College school, the Crypt grammar-school, the Blue-coat hospital, and a theological college. There is a cross (1863) to Hooper, and a statue (1880) of Raikes, the founder of Sunday schools; in the public park is a chalybeate spring, which was discovered in 1814. Cloth-working, pin-making, and bell-founding all belong to the past; and the commerce of Gloucester is now more important than its manufactures—chemicals, soap, matches, railway plant, shipbuilding, &c. The Gloucester and Berkeley Canal, completed in 1827 at a cost of £500,000, is described in Vol. II. p. 699. The number of vessels entering the port has almost trebled during the last thirty years; the imports include corn and timber, the exports agricultural produce and the minerals of the Forest of Dean. Since 1885 Gloucester has returned only one member. Pop. (1841) 14,152; (1871, as extended) 31,844; (1891) 39,444. Often visited by royalty, from the Conqueror's time to Victoria's, Gloucester was also the meeting-place of eight parliaments. In the Great Rebellion (1643) it held out successfully against Charles I. till Essex relieved it. Among its natives have been (doubtfully) Robert of Gloucester, whose metrical chronicle (1271) was edited in 1888 by Mr Aldis Wright; Taylor, the water-poet; Whitfield, Raikes, and Wheatstone. See works by Rudder (1781), Britton (1829), F. Bond (1848), and Waller (1856); also Murray's Western Cathedrals (new ed. 1874).