On the 25th May 2019 I had booked a coach trip to visit Gloucester Tall Ships to be held in Gloucester Docks, a wonderful part of this City’s old and historic part. Gloucester use to be part of the old Mercia Region of Great Britain. Gloucester is a city and district in the county of Gloucestershire it lies in the South West of England, of which it is the county town. Gloucester lies close to the Welsh border, on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the southwest. The country's most inland port has seen a regeneration program in the last decade, more visibly at the city's historic docks. It was in 1963 when I visited this beautiful City while I was in the Royal Navy and stayed with my best friend at the time we visited Cookes Cafe in Westgate Street with all his friends. The cathedral city of the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire has its roots stretching back to Roman times and has continued to be an historic and important English city, boasting over 2,000 years of history. Gloucester Cathedral has been a place of Christian worship continuously for over 1,300 years, since Osric, an Anglo-Saxon prince, founded a religious house here in 678-9 AD. Gloucester Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of St Peter and the Holy and Indivisible Trinity in Gloucester stands in the north part of the city near to the River Severn. It originated in 678 or 679 with the foundation of an abbey dedicated to Saint Peter. This beautiful Cathedral is on par with Winchester Cathedral which I visited last year in 2018. The large stained - glass windows behind the high altar is an amazing sight. The cathedral was used as a location for filming the first, second and sixth Harry Potter films along with few other films including in 2008, the cathedral was used by BBC Wales as a location for the Doctor Who Christmas special and again in 2019, when it was used to film for an episode of series 12 of Doctor Who. King Henry II granted Gloucester its first charter in 1155, which gave the burgesses ( the word Burgess originally meant a freeman of a borough of England or Wales or Ireland or burgh in Scotland . It later came to mean an elected or unelected official of a municipality, or the representative of a borough in the English House of Commons ) and thus came the same liberties as the citizens of London and Winchester. A second charter of Henry II gave them freedom of passage on the River Severn. The first charter was confirmed in 1194 by King Richard I. The privileges of the borough were greatly extended by the charter of King John, which gave freedom from toll throughout the kingdom and from pleading outside the borough. Llanthony Secunda Priory is now a ruined and former Augustinian prior. It was founded in 1136 by Miles de Gloucester, 1st Earl of Hereford, as a retreat for the monks of Llanthony Priory.Around the 16th Century it had become an independent priory in its own right and had become one of the largest Augustian houses in England at that time, owning 97 churches and 51 well appointed manors. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries ( The Dissolution of the Monasteries which is sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland ) the priory with its lands near Gloucester was granted by the Crown to Arthur Porter, MP for Gloucester. The Porters family and their descendants the Scudamores, used it as a mansion house until the Siege of Gloucester in 1643, when it became part of the Royalist camp. After the siege only outbuildings remained standing, used as a farmstead and stables Today the remains are a grade 1 listed structure and are occasionally open to the public during Gloucester’s Heritage Open Days which usually fall in September. However it was open and manned by Volunteers on this day of the Tall Ships venue.

Great no chain cafe with good quality food and a enormous pot of tea.