About the project and author

About the project and author

I first discovered Gloucester on holiday in 2018 when I visited the Cathedral. This had a large impact on me as 20 year old. The following year we stayed in Cirencester and by this time I had passed my driving test and could drive around as much as I wanted. Gloucester I visited once again to see the city again for myself. I fell in love with the county as a whole and later decided to enroll at the University of Gloucestershire studying Illustration at Francis Close Hall in Cheltenham. 

After three years in Cheltenham, I moved to Gloucester for my fourth and final year at university. The project itself was inspired by the Cheltenham Historical Gazetteer which tells the story of the town's development from a small market town into a Georgian resort. Every road is mentioned and I thought this could be easily applied to Gloucester. My aim was to give the citizens of this much-underrated city an idea about road names, construction dates, who built what, and what was there before. 

Gloucester's topography has been explored before by Victoria County History, which was an in-depth look at how the city changed from its Roman occupation to its Victorian expansion. Today technology and records have been easier to access and therefore I felt it was time to do an update and include outlying villages and suburbs such as Abbeydale, Abbeymead, Barnwood, Brockworth, Coney Hill, Churchdown, Elmbridge, Hardwick, Hempstead, Hucclecote, Innsworth, Longlevens, Longford and Tuffley. 

Due to the size of this project, it has taken many hours of patient research, visits to the records office, and asking on social media. As sometimes the best place to ask specific questions is by asking the Gloucester citizens themselves. I am truly grateful for all their contributions and comments. Without their help, this mission would have been impossible. This project is still ongoing and will take time to wrap up but I hope this blog will be completed at some point shortly.