Gloucester

We took another rest day at Tintern Abbey, catching up on things and recovering from the previous day's hike. Sunday morning we crossed the Wye again and were back in England. Originally we had thought we'd spend a week or more in Wales, but when it came to it, we decided that most of the things that interested us were up in the north, and that we had covered them well enough in 2009. We drove on through the Forest of Dean (the Deanery, nyuk, nyuk), got to Gloucester in the late morning, found an empty parking lot near the train station, and decided to spend the day, a beautiful Sunday, walking the old city and touring the cathedral.

Sunday street scene in Gloucester; much of the downtown
is pedestrianized; like many English cities, Gloucester has
maintained its Roman street lay-out; the center of the city is
the Cross, where meet the four main streets, Northgate,
Eastgate, Southgate, and Westgate

The New Inn, built in 1455, remains one of the best examples
of a Medieval courtyard inn; it was here that Lady Jane Grey
learned that the deal was done, she would be the next Queen
of England 

We thought we might have lunch at the New Inn but opted
instead for the similarly old Fountain

Pub grub: about half way through this meal
I remembered to take a photo: it was the largest
slab of fish I've ever been served (halibut), and
Vicki's ribs were similarly proportioned; Old
Butcombe and the week-long Ledbury Poetry
Festival guide for company

Old and really old: a shop building and the
cathedral towers beyond

One of Glouceter's other attractions is the Blackfriars Abbey,
one of the few abbeys in the UK not dismantled; maintained
now by English Heritage, mostly as a party house and
meeting center, I think; here we are in the courtyard

And here inside the church, looking at a
revealing cut-away: the abbey survived because
the mayor of Gloucester bought it directly after
the Dissolution, and converted it into his great
house; it has had many other uses in the
centuries since; the blocks have been cut away
to reveal some of the old church architecture

Vicki in the scriptorium, where the monks copied, and
re-copied, and illuminated, etc., the manuscripts; each of the
columns along the walls partitioned a monk's carrel; one
of the oldest still-existing library buildings in the UK, if not
Europe

Scissors vaulting in the scriptorium; note the large pegs where
the pieces are joined

Monk-ly graffiti? porn?

Really old door lintel

Not the baker's; Mr. Baker was apparently the town watchmaker,
jeweller, and optician; we didn't get to see figures doing their
things, but it must (have been) be a sight