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Gloucestershire

Administrative (pop., 2001: 564,559), geographic, and historic county, southwestern England. It is located at the head of the River Severn estuary on the Welsh border; Gloucester is the county seat. The Severn bisects the county from north to south. Prehistoric peoples were active in the area, as the numerous burial mounds indicate; later, the Romans had military camps within the county, and Gloucester was a Roman town of note. After the departure of the Romans, the Saxons occupied the area. Throughout the Middle Ages Gloucestershire was a battlefield, reflected in the imposing Norman defensive castles built on the Welsh frontier. The county's Cotswold area is important economically. Most of its eastern half is scenic, and a large area is set aside as the Dean National Forest Park.

For more information on Gloucestershire, visit Britannica.com.

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British History: Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire is one of the bigger counties, even after losing part of its southern fringe to Avon in the reorganization of 1972. The balance of the county has been much affected by two great towns. Bristol was a major city with a mint well before the Conquest and in 1373 was given status as a county in its own right. Consequently it was outside county government. Cheltenham was a mushroom development of the late 18th cent., after the celebrated visit by George III in 1789 had helped to spread the fame of its waters.

Roman Gloucestershire was prosperous. A military base was soon established at Gloucester (Glevum); Cirencester (Corinium) became the second largest town in Roman Britain; great villas at Woodchester and at Chedworth testify to the wealth of some of the inhabitants. The local inhabitants were the Dobunni tribe. After the withdrawal of the legions, much of Gloucestershire fell to the Saxons in 577, when Ceawlin of Wessex defeated British chiefs near Cirencester. But Wessex did not long retain the area. In 628, Penda, pagan king of Mercia, defeated the Wessex levies, and took possession. The eastern part became the kingdom of the Hwicce under Mercian overlordship: the western fringes of the Forest of Dean formed part of the autonomous kingdom of the Magonsaetans. This division was reflected in the ecclesiastical organization. The Hwicce territories became part of the see of Worcester, while the Magonsaetans fell under the jurisdiction of Hereford, founded in 676. The area changed hands again, falling once more to Wessex: Athelstan pushed back the Welsh, with the boundary becoming the Wye rather than the Severn, and died at Gloucester in 940.

After the Norman Conquest, Gloucestershire, first named as a county in 1016, was still a frontier region, and the earl of Gloucester had palatine powers. The Cotswold pastures had proved ideal for sheep, and a flourishing cloth industry established itself around Stroud and Dursley. The creation of a bishopric at Gloucester in 1541, after the dissolution of the monasteries, gave a shot in the arm to the county town.

As the cloth industry in the east and mining in the west went into decline, the county's industries diversified—wagon works at Gloucester, aeronautics at Bristol, piano-making, printing, furniture, chemicals, and tourism in the Cotswold valleys. In the 1960s the county was criss-crossed by the M4 running east-west and by the M5 running north-south: the interchange at Almondsbury was briefly a traffic sensation. Even more important was the Severn bridge in 1966 which brought to an end the old Beachley-Aust ferries.

Columbia Encyclopedia: Gloucestershire

(glŏs'tərshĭr', glô'stər–) , county (1991 pop. 520,600), 1,025 sq mi (2,655 sq km), W central England. The county seat is Gloucester. In the eastern part of the county are the Cotswold Hills, devoted largely to dairy and crop farming; in the center is the fertile valley of the Severn River, devoted to dairy farming (Gloucester cheese) and sheep raising; and in the west, on the Welsh border, are the Wye valley and the Forest of Dean, also with sheep raising. Manufacturing (aircraft, engineering, paper, and tobacco products) is centered in Gloucester, Bristol, and Cheltenham. Cirencester and Gloucester were centers of Roman road networks. The region became part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia. In the Middle Ages the Cotswolds provided wool for an important wool trade in the county.

WordNet: Gloucestershire

Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: a county in southwestern England in the lower Severn valley

Wikipedia: Gloucestershire

**Gloucestershire**

Geography
Status	Ceremonial & (smaller) Non-metropolitan county
Origin	Historic
Region:	South West England
Area - Total - Admin. council - Admin. area	Ranked 16th 3,150 km² Ranked 17th 2,653 km²
Admin HQ:	Gloucester
ISO 3166-2:	GB-GLS
ONS code:	23
NUTS 3:	UKK13
Demographics
Population - Total (2006 est.) - Density - Admin. council - Admin. pop.	Ranked 24th 833,100 264 / km² Ranked 21st 578,700
Ethnicity:	97.3% White
Politics
Gloucestershire County Council http://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/
Executive	Conservative
Members of Parliament	Roger Berry (L) Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (C) Parmjit Dhanda (L) David Drew (L)/(Co-op) Mark Harper (C) Martin Horwood (LD) Doug Naysmith (L)/(Co-op) Dan Norris (L) Laurence Robertson (C) Steve Webb (LD)
Districts
Gloucester Tewkesbury Cheltenham Cotswold Stroud Forest of Dean South Gloucestershire (Unitary)

Gloucestershire (pronounced [ˈglɒstəʃə]; GLOSS-ter-sher) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean.

The county town is the city of Gloucester, and other principal towns include Cheltenham, Stroud, Cirencester, and Tewkesbury.

When considered as a ceremonial county, Gloucestershire borders the preserved county of Gwent in Wales, and in England the ceremonial counties of Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, Somerset and Bristol.

According to a 2002 campaign by the charity Plantlife, the county flower of Gloucestershire is the Wild Daffodil^[1].

History

Main article: History of Gloucestershire

Historically, Gloucestershire, until 1973, included Bristol. The area of South Gloucestershire was made part of the administrative County of Avon in 1974. Upon the abolition of Avon in 1996, it became a unitary authority, and is now part of the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire.

The official former postal county abbreviation was "Glos.", rather than the frequently used but erroneous "Gloucs." or "Glouc.".

2007 Flooding

In July of 2007, Gloucestershire had the worst flooding in recorded British history, with tens of thousands of residents affected. The RAF conducted the largest peace time domestic operation in its history to rescue over 120 residents from flood affected areas. The damage has been estimated at over 2 billion pounds. ^[2]

The county is recovering rapidly from the disaster, investing in attracting tourists to visit the many sites and diverse range of shops in the area.

Economy

This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of Gloucestershire at current basic prices published (pp.240-253) by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.

Year	Regional Gross Value Added^[3]	Agriculture^[4]	Industry^[5]	Services^[6]
1995	5,771	196	1,877	3,698
2000	8,163	148	2,677	5,338
2003	10,617	166	2,933	7,517

Also the river severn was damaged

Towns and villages

Main article: list of places in Gloucestershire

Antiquities and other places of interest

Berkeley Castle, an example of a feudal stronghold.
Beverston Castle
Forest of Dean
Hailes Abbey
Owlpen Manor
Sudeley Castle
Tewkesbury Abbey
Tyndale Monument
Wildfowl and Wetland Trust, Slimbridge

The cathedrals of Gloucester and Bristol, the magnificent abbey church of Tewkesbury, and the church of Cirencester with its great Perpendicular porch, are described under their separate headings. Of the abbey of Hailes near Winchcombe, founded by Richard, Earl of Cornwall, in 1246, little more than the foundations are left, but these have been excavated with great care, and interesting fragments have been brought to light.

Most of the old market towns have fine parish churches. At Deerhurst near Tewkesbury, and Bishop's Cleeve near Cheltenham, there are churches of special interest on account of the pre-Norman work they retain. The Perpendicular church at Lechlade is unusually perfect; and that at Fairford was built (c. 1500), according to tradition, to contain the remarkable series of stained-glass windows which are said to have been brought from the Netherlands. These are, however, adjudged to be of English workmanship, and are one of the finest series in the country.

Calcot Barn is an interesting relic of the abbey of Kingswood. Thornbury Castle is a fine Tudor ruin, the pretensions of which evoked the jealousy of Cardinal Wolsey against its builder, Edward Stafford, duke of Buckingham, who was beheaded in 1521. Near Cheltenham is the fine 15th-century mansion of Southam de la Bere, of timber and stone. Memorials of the de la Bere family appear in the church at Cleeve. The mansion contains a tiled floor from Hailes Abbey. At Great Badminton is the mansion and vast domain of the Beauforts (formerly of the Botelers and others), on the south-eastern boundary of the county. At Owlpen is one of the most picturesque Tudor manor houses set in a densely-wooded valley.

There are several royal residences in Gloucestershire, including Highgrove House, Gatcombe Park, and (formerly) Nether Lypiatt Manor.