Tewkesbury

Tewkesbury, a town in Gloucestershire, is located on the River Severn where the river Avon joins it and where the locks and weirs along the route of the Avon allowed river traffic to reach the Severn.

Tewkesbury takes its name from Saxon times where a Saxon founded a hermitage in the seventh century. Theocsbury, as it would have been referred to, owes its very existence and prosperity to its nearby rivers.

Visitors to Tewkesbury will find several Tudor buildings including Gloucestershire's oldest public house, The Black Bear. Tewkesbury High Street is unique in its mix of old and new buildings and upon exploration there is plenty of interesting architecture to see.

This former market town has seen its fair share of historic battles and if towns could talk this would have plenty to tell. The Abbey Mill just off the High Street served as a centre for flour milling for centuries.

Tewkesbury is popular with tourists during the summer months and with easy access to the nearby M5 motorway it acts as a conduit for traffic taking scenic routes through the Gloucestershire countryside.

Tewkesbury plays host to a number of festivals. From February to October visitors can take part in a Winter Beer Festival, a Medieval Festival with real battle re-enactments and a fair, a water festival and the annual Mop Fair. For such a small town it has a significant events diary.

The Medieval Fair at Tewkesbury is Europe's largest free annual medieval battle re-enactment and fair. Thousands of dedicated battled hardened participants turn up for this.

The spectacular scenes and focus of all this attention is to re-create the Battle of Tewkesbury which took place in 1471

The Tewkesbury Abbey or The Abbey of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is the second largest parish church in England and was a former Benedictine Monastery.

Tewkesbury's importance as a market town would have been made all the more obvious to visitors by such an impressive structure. It's origins go back to the monastery when the Abbey was surrendered to Henry VIII as part of the dissolution of the monasteries.

Generally the monastic buildings were demolished but this town managed to buy back the land and continue worshipping on the site. Although the Abbey has changed significantly over the years it still dominates the town.

Tewkesbury has its own modern industrial estate and the nearby Ashchurch army camp is one of the largest depots of its kind in the UK..

www.tewkesbury.gov.uk


For more photographs of Tewkesbury click here