County town: Gloucester
Gloucestershire emerged as a shire in the 10th century, centred on Gloucester — a Roman colonia and important Saxon burh on the Severn. It incorporates the ancient territory of the Hwicce kingdom.
Gloucestershire encompasses three distinct landscapes: the Cotswold Hills with their honey-coloured limestone villages, the broad Severn valley with its orchards and market towns, and the Forest of Dean, an ancient royal forest on the Welsh border. The county's wool trade, based on the Cotswold sheep pastures, generated the magnificent 'wool churches' of Chipping Campden, Cirencester, and Northleach. Gloucester Cathedral, begun as the abbey church of St Peter in 679, contains the shrine of Edward II and some of the finest medieval stained glass in England. The Severn was a highway of commerce — Bristol's success depended on navigation up this river.
Gloucestershire was surveyed in the Domesday Book of 1086, William the Conqueror's great census of England. The survey recorded 516 settlements in the county, with details of their lords, landholders, population, and resources.
Browse 516 Domesday settlements in GloucestershireEngland's 39 historic counties, established between the 9th and 12th centuries, are the framework through which English local history, legal records, and landscape have been organised for a thousand years. Most survive today as ceremonial counties, their boundaries deeply embedded in place identity.
This page introduces the historic county of Gloucestershire. A full Aubrey report for a location within it pulls together everything the record actually holds about that ground, from the geology beneath it to the last coin dropped in a field:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Read in-depth research reports on notable historical places across the UK — explore →
Gloucestershire contains 538 scheduled monuments — sites of national importance protected under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979.
Browse scheduled monuments in EnglandAn Aubrey report for a specific location in Gloucestershire draws on historical maps, archaeological records, Domesday data and landscape history to tell the full story of any site in the county.