Gloucester Cathedral, St Oswald’s Priory, St Mary de Lode Church

A 14-mile pilgrim route connects Tewkesbury Abbey to Gloucester, through meadows beside the river Severn, and the cathedral is also on the circular Three Choirs Way

Highlights

• Grave of ‘martyr’ King Edward II
• Sites of Saxon saints’ shrines
• Saxon priory ruins
• Church built on Roman temple
• Reformation martyr’s monument

A few English kings narrowly missed out on sainthood. King Edward II is one such monarch. His magnificent tomb in Gloucester Cathedral has a sign alongside describing his ‘saintly figure’. Pilgrims visited this tomb in great numbers during the century after his murder in 1327 at Berkeley Castle, 15 miles to the south.

The tomb is one of England’s most splendid monuments. So too is the cathedral that surrounds it, thanks in part to the donations of pilgrims coming to visit this royal shrine. It is in the ambulatory north of the high altar.

The king might seem an unlikely choice for veneration in the unenlightened Middle Ages: his best friend Hugh Despenser was considered to be homosexual and tortured to death on a range of charges. The monarch himself was later brutally murdered. Some accounts claim a red-hot poker was involved, though it is hard to tell what is true and what is propaganda. He was almost certainly killed on the orders of his estranged wife, Queen Isabella of France. Her nationality presumably explains his status as a martyr and folk hero, although medieval social attitudes can be surprisingly hard to fathom.

After such a gruelling introduction, it is worth remembering that Gloucester has a much longer Christian past to explore. Osric, king of the Hwicce tribe, built the first church here in 679. A monument to him can be seen next to King Edward II’s tomb, clutching a model of the church he founded. He too was never recognised as a royal saint. His remains still lie in this tomb.

There was an actual saint’s shrine in the cathedral. St Arild was a virgin martyr of unknown date, killed for refusing the advances of a pagan tyrant. Her tomb was moved here soon after the Norman Conquest from Thornbury, 20 miles to the south-west. It became the scene of many miracles but was obliterated at the Reformation. The cathedral is an unusually peaceful place to linger even so, dedicated to St Peter and the Holy Trinity.‍

St Oswald’s Priory Ruins

The city gained a second abbey at the end of the 9th century. A ruined wall of this Saxon building can still be seen, 200m north of the cathedral. This housed the city’s earliest recorded shrine, containing relics of St Oswald, King of Northumbria, who died in 642. His body was brought here from Bardney in Lincolnshire in 909 (page 308) and was greatly venerated for a time.

However, Gloucester’s original abbey continued to grow and St Oswald’s Priory was steadily eclipsed by its neighbour. By the time of the Dissolution, the priory was just a minor Augustinian community, swept away along with St Oswald’s shrine by the reformers. It now sits in a grassy open space, an explanatory panel alongside explaining which fragments date from the Saxon abbey.

Gloucester has a ‘Via Sacra’ walking route that takes in many of the city’s historical sites, starting and finishing by the cathedral. A leaflet is available from the tourist centre in the museum on Brunswick Road, or search online.‍

St Mary de Lode and Martyr’s Monument

A third site in Gloucester has yet more interesting Christian connections, a detour on the Via Sacra walking route. The church of St Mary de Lode was built on the site of a Roman building, perhaps a temple. It is just outside the western gate into the cathedral green, directly on the way if you are visiting the Saxon abbey. A ‘lode’ is a river, referring to a stream that once ran nearby.

Like others with Roman fabric, it is claimed by some as the first church built in Britain. The Venerable Bede talks of a Roman-era King Lucius who converted to Christianity in about 160 (History i.4). There has been speculation linking him to this church, but there is no direct evidence that he was buried here, or even that he existed. The church was locked when I visited.

There is a monument outside St Mary’s church to Bishop John Hooper, yet another victim of the Reformation’s blood lust for ‘heretics’. He was burned to death here on 9 February 1555 in front of a crowd of 7,000 townspeople. It took three attempts to make the fire hot enough to kill him, witnesses reporting that he took 45 minutes to die.

“He endured the fire with the meekness of a lamb, dying as quietly as a child in his bed,” records the explanatory panel alongside. The sickening analogy is appropriate. The following year, a blind boy called Thomas Drowry, who had visited the bishop on the day before his execution, was burned to death on the same spot. These people were Protestants, murdered in the name of the Catholic Church under Queen Mary I. An eye for an eye.

Directions

Gloucester Cathedral

College Green, Gloucester GL1 2LX

www.gloucestercathedral.org.uk

W3W: firm.flood.globe

GPS: 51.8672N 2.2468W‍

St Oswald’s Priory

Priory Road/Archdeacon Street, Gloucester GL1 2QS

W3W: sling.pack.kings

GPS: 51.8694N 2.2479W‍

St Mary de Lode Church

Archdeacon Street, Gloucester GL1 2QX

W3W: wiping.forced.fixed

GPS: 51.8686N 2.2494W‍

All three sites are within 200m of each other. It is easiest to visit the cathedral first, then the martyr’s monument with St Mary de Lode Church, and finally the ruined St Oswald’s Priory. Admission is by requested donation, and the cathedral is open daily, see details online.