Exploring The Mediaeval Streets of Tewkesbury

We were off sightseeing again last Saturday but this time we were a lot closer to home, visiting Tewkesbury with our friends Lynn and Brendan. A Mediaeval market town in the county of Gloucestershire, Tewkesbury stands on the confluence of the Rivers Avon and Severn and was named after Theoc, a Saxon who formed a hermitage here in the 7th Century. It's only an hour's drive from home, every time we go we ask ourselves why we don't go more often! 

The town is probably best known for the Battle of Tewkesbury, which took place on 4 May 1471 and was one of the decisive battles of the Wars of the Roses. Tewkesbury Abbey, which was built in the 12th Century, was unsuccessfully used as a sanctuary by some of the defeated Lancastrians following the battle but the victorious Yorkists, led by Edward IV (Jon's 17 x great uncle), forced their way into the abbey and the subsequent bloodshed caused the building to be closed for a month until it could be purified and re-consecrated.

Originally part of a monastery, the Abbey was saved from Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries after being bought by the townspeople for the price of the lead on the roof to use for their parish church.

It's not just Jon who has a connection with Tewkesbury Abbey, on the shelves of the secondhand bookshop inside I spotted former England cricket captain, Mike Brearley's autobiography (my Dad's cousin!)

The houses and shops throughout the town chart Tewkesbury’s prosperity through a variety of trades. Medieval cottages exist alongside Tudor townhouses and Georgian architecture. Famous for its mustard (Shakespeare’s Falstaff has the line “Wit as thick as Tewkesbury mustard”), other major industries over the years in Tewkesbury include brewing and malting, pin making and the knitting of stockings.

A perfectly preserved Mediaeval townscape, Tewkesbury is home to over 400 listed properties and one of the few places in The Cotswolds where you can see black and white half-timbered buildings.

Tewkesbury holds an internationally renowned Mediaeval Fayre every July where the Battle of Tewkesbury is reenacted by the local history society. The street banners hanging from the buildings are based on the Mediaeval coats of arms of every person involved in the battle.  

Tewkesbury has a plenthora of charity shops and a handful of antique centres and junk shops, too.

Brendan and Lynn used to have a unit in this one. Jon treated himself to some fantastic vintage vinyl.

The Town Hall hosts regular craft and antiqies fairs. It's a great place for a cup of tea, too.

Over the River Avon, close to the former flour mill, King John's Bridge has its origins in the late 12th century. Another of the town’s entrances over the River Severn is the Mythe Bridge designed by Thomas Telford. A cast-iron structure with a 170-foot span, the bridge opened to traffic in 1826.

Taking a breather between charity shops! 

You have to love a town with a cat sculpture.

I'm sure you'll be relieved to know that there's a Wetherspoons in Tewkesbury. The Royal Hop Pole on Church Street is an amalgamation of a number of historic buildings dating between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries and even got mentioned in Charles Dickens's The Pickwick Papers. We ate pizza in the shady courtyard overlooking the River Severn, possibly one of Spoons' prettiest beer gardens.

 

The tourist information centre is situated in a building built in 1694. The beadle's hat suspended from the first floor is a leftover from when the building was used as a hat shop.

Cornell Books, a family run business with 30,000 antiquarian and secondhand books, is housed within the former Wheatsheaf pub. The proprietor told me that one of her customers had recently done some research and discovered that the oak beams dated to 1425!

 

It's an incredible place and the paperbacks are great value. 

We loved this shop even more when we spotted the resident cat.

We visited every charity shop in Tewkesbury (I lost count at 10) but were very restrained, only buying a 1960s cobalt blue Welsh Wool tapestry trilby and a 1950s Dunn & Co. feather-trimmed fedora - both of which are destined for the next festival. Here's our vinyl haul (from the antiques centre and one of the charity shops)....Revolution by Theatre of Hate (1983), a first pressing of Rumours by Fleetwood Mac (1977) which, unlike our other copy, has the much sought-after textured sleeve, Plastic Bertrand's 1977 album An 1 (I've still got the 7" single, Ca Plane Pour Moi, which I bought from Woolworths the same year!), Sex (I'm a...) Pleasure Victim by Berlin (1982) and a 12" of Careless Whisper by George Michael (1984) - I still have my original 7", bought when I was in the 6th form! 

Thanks to Lynn and Brendan for a bostin' day out. 

If you've not been to Tewkesbury you really should, you can even stay at Wetherspoons !

It's Jon's birthday tomorrow. I'll report back with what we got up to before the end of the week.