VII.

History

Relics of Neolithic settlement have been found, notably the long barrows known as Belas Knap, above Winchcombe, and Hetty Pegler's Tump, near Uley. The grave of an Iron Age princess has been excavated; she was buried with her personal possessions, including an engraved bronze mirror; the “Birdlip mirror” is now in Gloucester City Museum. Gloucestershire is, however, best known for its Roman remains. The Fosse Way, a Roman road that ran from the south Devon coast north-eastwards to Lincoln, crosses the county. Gloucester (Roman name Glevum) and Cirencester (Corinium) were important Roman towns. Two well-preserved Roman villas are nearby, at Chedworth and at Woodchester. In 628 King Penda of Mercia fought a great battle at Cirencester against the local Hwicce (West Saxons) and annexed their territory.

The great castles of Berkeley, overlooking the Severn (where Edward II was murdered in 1327), and St Briavels, overlooking the Wye, were strongholds originally built by the Normans. St Peter's Abbey, which became Gloucester Cathedral, also dates from the Norman period. Before the Norman Conquest there was a thriving seaborne trade in iron operating out of Gloucester; this was later extended to grain and wine. Civil war ravaged the county during the 12th century, and in 1471 Tewkesbury was the site of a great Yorkist victory during the Wars of the Roses.

By the 14th century, Flemish weavers had arrived to help establish the wool trade, which thereafter made the county prosperous. Gloucester was besieged for a month during the English Civil War. Early in the 19th century the Berkeley and Gloucester Canal was dug, giving direct access to the Bristol Channel and allowing transatlantic vessels into the city docks, which brought renewed prosperity. Bristol meanwhile had developed into a major port. The Tudor seafarer Sebastian Cabot and his father John set out from Bristol on their voyage to the New World in 1497, having been authorized by Henry VII to trade from the port. Subsequent trade with the Americas, chiefly in tobacco, sugar, and slaves, brought great wealth to Bristol in the 17th and 18th centuries. Cheltenham became a fashionable spa in the early 18th century, following the discovery there of mineral springs.