Gloucestershire (pronounce that, yanks!)

Gloucester, (gloss-ter) is a town west of London. Its position along the longest river in Britain, the Severn, made it a bustling inland port town for quite some time. Now, its old docks, warehouses, and mills have become a beautiful tourist spot. The town itself dates back to Roman times, and Saxons laid the foundation of the now cathedrdal in 681 AD. Wow.
Today it is a beautiful city with many historical gems. One of the largest tutor style buildings is hidden down a narrow alley sandwiched against a modern building. Also the real setting of Beatrix Potters 'The Tailor of Gloucester' is here, as it is based on a true story of a tailor in the city (minus a talking cat and mice who can sew).

King Edward II was buried at the cathedral in 1327, a long awaited home for the murdered king (in fact, he was buried a full three months after his death to avoid riots in the streets.) As well as making Gloucester a pilgrimage site, his grave saved the cathedral from being torn down during the reformation in the 16th century.
And, although the cathedral houses one of the largest medieval glass windows in Europe, and the graves of a king and the eldest son of William the Conquerer (Robert Curthose), it is most famous for being the set for Harry Potter.
In a controversial yet brilliant move, the cloisters of the cathedrdal were transformed for the filming of the 1st, 2nd, and 6th movies. The religious themed windows were changed, the gravemarked floor covered, and any other modern things were covered up (including a light switch panel.)
A cool part of the cloisters is the lavatorium, an ancient bathroom where the monks would wash up. Even on this mid-March day, it was pretty cold. Except for the cold bathroom and 2am wake up calls, becoming a monk back in the day was a pretty good career move, well, by 13th century standards. We also visited the crypt which housed the British coronation chair and the cathedrals East window during WWII to protect them from harm.

Oh, British history!

Comments

Andy said…
In NEW England, we would say that GLOW-ster-shi-er (maybe even more accurately, GLOW-sta-shi-yuh), but if it was Worcestershire, then we would say WOOS-ter-shi-er.

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