St Oswalds Priory

St. Oswald's Priory was founded by Lady Aethelflaed of Mercia, daughter of Alfred the Great, around 900 after her husband Aethelred II had been struck down with a debilitating illness.

The Priory Church, initially dedicated to St. Peter, was constructed from recycled Roman stones which may have come from a nearby temple. It was a bold and unusual move to build a church during this period, a time of frequent Viking raids.

At first it was a Christian cemetery, possibly serving the nearby Palace of Kingsholm, but in 909 the relics of Saint Oswald were brought there and installed in a new crypt with great ceremony. The building was rededicated to the saint and quite possibly Aethelflaed and her husband were later interred in the crypt. Archaological excavations in the 1970s revealed a 10th century fragment of carved slab from the grave of someone extremely important.

In the centuries that followed St Oswald's grew rich as a place of pilgrimage and was at the centre of a large parish. In the 10th century the church acquired a tower for which the canons produced their own bells in a bell-pit excavated on the site.

By the time of the Norman Conquest, however, the place was in decline. It was taken over by the Archbishopric of York and its secular canons replaced by Augustinian ones in 1153. Although the building was subsequently repaired and enlarged - the arches are 12th and 13th century - it was almost literally in the shadow of the more successful Abbey of St. Peter, now Gloucester Cathedral. Things got worse when the Archbishops of York and Canterbury fell into a two century-long dispute with the Bishop of Worcester over its ownership. When the latter excommunicated the canons of St. Oswald's and forbade the citizens of Gloucester from selling them provisions, King Edward I was forced to intervene.

By the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s there were only seven canons and their servants to eject. The arches of the north aisle were blocked up and it became the parish church of St. Catherine in 1548. For a while it was a highly popular place of worship, but then came the Civil War and the Siege of Gloucester. Largely destroyed by Royalist cannon fire, the church was eventually demolished in 1653 and the stone was used to rebuild a new market house.

Until the late Victorian houses were built over the entrance to the crypt it was known as 'The hole before the Pelican' as drinkers in the public house opposite in St Mary's Street (now the College Arms) were apt to tumble down it after closing time.

Only the northern arcade of the nave survived as it had been built into a series of outhouses and sheds. Now set in a small park, its arches have long been used as goalposts, but recent bouts of vandalism have forced the City Council to fence the monument off.