On the summery afternoon once school had broken up, our travel team made an afternoon out of a trip to Gloucester. Only a half hour trip from our accommodation, we wandered through the streets that inspired Beatrix Potter stories. Of course our first stop was of course for a Cornish Pasty and then we could wander on through to a museum dedicated to Peter Rabbit and it’s author Beatrix Potter. We discovered that her illustrations and story line of the ‘Tailor from Gloucester’ was genuinely taken from true events of two tailor’s assistants who put in some extra hours work and didn’t tell anyone leading to the opinion that fairies made things in his shop during the night.

We moved onward to the Cathedral, the real highlight of the town. It is a place of worship that has stood in its spot since 678 AD. Although the original building is vastly different to the stupendous towering Gothic building that stands today. This main part of the cathedral was constructed in 1089 AD by a Monk named Abbott Serlo.

The Cathedral has two main connections to royalty, with the first being the coronation location of Henry III at just nine years old. At nine years old I was cheering to get a pen license! The next is it is the final resting place for King Edward II, and there is a shrine to him which apparently brought lots of money to the area in the 15^th Century. However at this time there was crazy going-ons for ideologies within the church to the point that one of the bishops was burned at the stake outside the church.

There are a few interesting little things about the Cathedral. The first thing I was shown by a wonderful lady is the carving of a man in the corner that is believed to be dedicated to a man who sadly died after falling off a scaffold in that spot. Next, the front of the church houses corridors and stairwells that snake around the whole building. There is a little whispering gallery that can connect two whispering speakers about 20 metres away down a corridor, where a conversation can be had in the quietest voices over such a distance. Most excitingly the Cathedral is home to many sets from the filming of Harry Potter. The Cloisters were corridors for trolls and writings of blood in the Chamber of Secrets. The lavatories of Moaning Myrtle are also there. Lucy had an absolute blast walking through them.

To end our day we wandered into Gloucester Docks for some beers at a microbrewery and a visit to the Cadbury Shop. I still can’t quite understand the idea of England’s culture of warm beers. We returned home and are looking forward to our next stops through Great Britain!

As Grandma’s friend Laurie always says…

“Love all around”