Gloucester

City, port, and administrative headquarters of Gloucestershire, southwest England, on the River Severn, 67 km/42 mi northeast of Bristol; population (2001) 123,200. It is a finance and insurance centre, and manufactures aerospace equipment, ice cream and frozen foods, machinery (lifting, fuel vending, compressors), optical equipment, information technology, and camping goods. Salmon fisheries in the Severn are a valuable resource.

Gloucester was the Roman colony of Glevum, established in the late 1st century AD. The city's 11th–14th-century cathedral has a Norman nave and includes early examples of Perpendicular-style architecture. The Three Choirs Music Festival is held here every three years (in turn with Hereford and Worcester).

History Situated to the west of the Cotswold Hills, at the lowest crossing point of the Severn, the Roman settlement of Glevum became one of the four coloniae of Roman Britain. It was fortified with walls, and its town plan was based around a central cross at the meeting point of four roads. Henry III was crowned in the cathedral in 1216. Supporting the Parliamentarians in the Civil War, Gloucester withstood a siege in 1643. The city became an important inland port after the opening of the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal in 1827, which linked the city to the Bristol Channel.

Features The docks have been redeveloped and include the Robert Opie Museum of Advertising and Packaging (opened in 1984) and the National Waterways Museum. The regional offices of the British Waterways Board are located in Gloucester, with responsibility for navigable waterways. The church of St Mary-de-Crypt, dating from the 12th century, includes the tomb of Robert Raikes, who founded the Sunday School movement in Gloucester in 1780. The City Museum and Art Gallery includes Roman relics found in the city, and the Folk Museum illustrates the social history of the area. Redevelopment of the Cheltenham and Gloucester College of Higher Education began in 1993.

Some 9 km/6 mi from Gloucester lies Prinknash Abbey, on the site of a former residence of the abbots of Gloucester, occupied since 1928 by Benedictine monks.

Gloucester Cathedral A Benedictine abbey was built here in the second half of the 11th century on the site of an earlier Saxon abbey. Edward II, killed at Berkely Castle, was buried here in 1327 and his shrine became an important centre of pilgrimage. The wealth gained from the pilgrims funded the reconstruction of the abbey and church. From 1337 much of the church was remodelled in the Perpendicular style, although the Norman core was preserved. The cathedral's south transept is an early example of the Perpendicular style, and the cloisters (about 1370–1410) include the earliest example of fan vaulting in England. The cathedral's east window is the largest medieval stained-glass window in England, dating from the mid 14th century. The church received cathedral status from Henry VIII.

Gloucester

City and port in Essex County, northeast Massachusetts, USA, on Cape Ann, 50 km/31 mi northeast of Boston; population (2000) 30,300. It is America's oldest fishing port, first settled in 1623, incorporated as a town in 1642 and as a city in 1873. Its industries include tourism (including whale watching), fishing and fish processing (especially lobster, whiting, and cod), electronic equipment, and clothing.

It is estimated that over 8,000 fishermen have lost their lives here through the centuries; a bronze statue in the city is dedicated to their memory.

The city has 28 entries on the national register of historic places, including Beauport, also called the Sleeper-McCann House, a 0-room mansion built by interior designer Henry Davis Sleeper between 1907 and 1934. The oldest Universalist church in the USA (founded 1770) is also situated in Gloucester. Offshore, to the southwest, is the reef known as Norman's Woe, which featured in Henry Longfellow's ballad ‘The Wreck of the Hesperus’. Gloucester was featured in the film The Perfect Storm (2000), as the home port of the fishing boat whose loss in 1991 was the subject of the film.