Tetbury is a town and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

inside the

Cotswold district Cotswold is a local government district in Gloucestershire, England. It is named after the wider Cotswolds region. Its main town is Cirencester. Other notable towns include Tetbury, Moreton-in-Marsh, Stow-on-the-Wold and Chipping Campden. Nota ...

in England. It lies on the site of an ancient

hill fort A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roma ...

, on which an

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which ...

was founded, probably by

Ine of Wessex Ine, also rendered Ini or Ina, ( la, Inus; c. AD 670 – after 726) was King of Wessex from 689 to 726. At Ine's accession, his kingdom dominated much of southern England. However, he was unable to retain the territorial gains of his predecessor ...

, in 681. The population of the parish was 5,250 in the 2001 census, increasing to 5,472 at the 2011 census. The population was 6,453 in the 2021 Census.

History

During the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

, Tetbury became an important market for

Cotswold The Cotswolds (, ) is a region in central-southwest England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale. The area is defined by the bedrock of Juras ...

wool Wool is the textile fibre obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have properties similar to animal wool. As ...

and

yarn Yarn is a long continuous length of interlocked fibres, used in sewing, crocheting, knitting, weaving, embroidery, ropemaking, and the production of textiles. Thread is a type of yarn intended for sewing by hand or machine. Modern manufact ...

. The

Tetbury Woolsack Races The Tetbury Woolsack Races are an annual sporting event in the English town of Tetbury, in Gloucestershire, where competitors must race up and down the steepest street in the town carrying a full woolsack on their back. It is held each year on ...

, founded 1972, is an annual competition where participants must carry a sack of

up and down a steep hill (''Gumstool Hill''). The Tetbury Woolsack Races take place on the "late May Bank Holiday", the last Monday in May each year. Notable buildings in the town include the

Church House A church, church building or church house is a building used for Christian worship services and other Christian religious activities. The earliest identified Christian church is a house church founded between 233 and 256. From the 11th thro ...

, the

Market House A market house is a covered space historically used as a marketplace to exchange goods and services such as provisions or livestock, sometimes combined with spaces for public or civic functions on the upper floors and often with a jail or lockup ...

and the late-eighteenth century

Gothic revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities, ...

of St Mary the Virgin and St Mary Magdalene and much of the rest of the town centre, dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Market House is a fine example of a Cotswold pillared market house and is still in use as a meeting place and market. Other attractions include the Tetbury Police Museum and Courtroom,

Chavenage House Chavenage House, Beverston, Gloucestershire is a country house dating from the late 16th century. The house was built in 1576 and is constructed of Cotswold stone, with a Cotswold stone tiled roof. David Verey and Alan Brooks, in their Gloucester ...

Highgrove House Highgrove House is the family residence of King Charles III and Queen Camilla. It lies southwest of Tetbury in Gloucestershire, England. Built in the late 18th century, Highgrove and its estate were owned by various families until it was pu ...

and

Westonbirt Arboretum Westonbirt, The National Arboretum is an arboretum in Gloucestershire, England, about southwest of the town of Tetbury. Managed by Forestry England, it is perhaps the most important and widely known arboretum in the United Kingdom. Planted in ...

lie just outside the town. Tetbury has won five consecutive Gold awards in the Regional "Heart of England in Bloom" competition in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 and was category winner "Best Small Town" in 2008, 2009 and 2010. In 2010 Tetbury was Overall Winner of Heart of England in Bloom and won a Judges Discretionary Award for Community Achievement. Tetbury won Silver Gilt as a first-time entrant in the National Britain in Bloom Campaign in 2009 and a second Silver Gilt in Britain in Bloom in 2011. The Tetbury town crest features two dolphins.

Geography

Tetbury is situated in a landscape of gently rolling hills primarily used for farmland, including grazing of sheep and grain production. Its location is associated with a nearby major east–west trade or drovers trail, which would account for its early importance as a wool trade centre. Nearby to the west are

Owlpen Manor Owlpen Manor is a Tudor Grade I listed manor house of the Mander family, situated in the village of Owlpen in the Stroud district in Gloucestershire, England. There is an associated estate set in a valley within the Cotswold Area of Outstandi ...

Beverston Castle Beverston Castle, also known as Beverstone Castle or Tetbury Castle, was constructed as a medieval stone fortress in the village of Beverston, Gloucestershire, England. The property is a mix of manor house, various small buildings, extensive gar ...

and

Calcot Manor Calcot Manor is a historic building in Calcot, three and a half miles west of Tetbury on A 4135 in Gloucestershire, England, near the junction of roads A46 and A4135 (National Grid Reference ST 841180 94891). The original building was establish ...

. The

Tetbury Avon The Tetbury Avon, also known as the Little Avon or the Ingleburn (Anglo-Saxon - English river), is a tributary of the Bristol Avon. It is also referred to as the River Avon (Tetbury Branch). It rises at Tetbury in Gloucestershire in the West Co ...

, a tributary of the

Bristol Avon The River Avon is a river in the south west of England. To distinguish it from a number of other rivers of the same name, it is often called the Bristol Avon. The name 'Avon' is a cognate of the Welsh word , meaning 'river'. The Avon r ...

, known locally as the Ingleburn rises to the north of the town.

Governance

Most of Tetbury falls in the Tetbury parish, although some of the northern parts of the town are officially in

Tetbury Upton Tetbury Upton is a small village and civil parish in the Cotswolds area of Gloucestershire, England. The parish extends in an arc around the north, west and south of the town of Tetbury, and includes the village of Tetbury Upton on the B4014 ro ...

. Tetbury is in the Cotswold district, and amenities are run by

Cotswold District Council The Cotswolds (, ) is a region in central-southwest England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper River Thames, Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale. The area is defined by the be ...

Gloucestershire County Council Gloucestershire County Council is a county council which administers the most strategic local government services in the non-metropolitan county of Gloucestershire, in the South West of England. The council's principal functions are county road ...

is also responsible for parts of the town. Nationally, Tetbury is in the Cotswold constituency, and has been represented in Parliament by

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown Sir Geoffrey Robert Clifton-Brown (born 23 March 1953)Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 107th edition, vol. 1, ed. Charles Mosley, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 2003, p. 538 is a British politician serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for Th ...

(

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

) since 1997. He has a majority of 20,000 over the Liberal Democrats.

Economy

Tetbury is renowned for its antique and bric à brac shops; '' Homes & Antiques'' magazine named Long Street one of the UK's top 10 favourite streets for shopping in December 2018. The town centre also has a number of independent specialist food and clothing shops, banks, charity shops, estate agents and other shops including lifestyle clothing brand Overider and the Prince of Wales's original "Highgrove Shop" which opened in 2008. A

Tesco Tesco plc () is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, England. In 2011 it was the third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues and the ninth-largest in th ...

supermarket branch was opened a quarter of a mile from the town centre in July 2002. The town's high street is the home to a number of specialist shops selling cheese, breads, meats, dairy and frozen products, entertainment supplies, among others. The town has pubs and hotels, including the Royal Oak Inn which was featured in the 1971 film ''

Dulcima ''Dulcima'' is a 1971 British drama film directed by Frank Nesbitt. It was entered into the 21st Berlin International Film Festival. The story revolves around a love triangle: a farmer, his housekeeper and the handsome neighbour. Plot Dulcima G ...

'' and in an episode of BBC One's ''

Bonekickers ''Bonekickers'' is a BBC drama about a team of archaeologists, set at the fictional Wessex University. It made its début on 8 July 2008 in television, 2008 and ran for one series. It was written by ''Life on Mars (UK TV series), Life on Mars' ...

''. The Trouble House, immediately outside the town, was served by Trouble House Halt between 1959 and 1964.

Culture

Events in the town include Woolsack Day, held on the last Bank Holiday in May, famous for the races and street fair. A flower show is held at the recreation ground. The first "Tetbury Fiesta" was held on the

recreation ground A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and recreation or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. Urban parks are green spaces set aside for recreation inside towns and cities. N ...

in July 2008. Tetbury Music Festival is held in early October.

Hospital

Tetbury Hospital is a privately run facility which funds itself from government funding and charitable donations. The hospital, which homes a

Minor Injuries Unit A minor injuries unit (MIU) is a type of walk-in clinic service provided in some hospitals in the United Kingdom. Units are generally staffed by emergency nurse practitioners (ENPs) who can work autonomously to treat minor injuries such as lacerati ...

, was rated as "needing improvement" by the

Care Quality Commission The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health and Social Care of the United Kingdom. It was established in 2009 to regulate and inspect health and social care services in England. I ...

in 2016. In 2005 it was announced that beds at the site would be cut. The nearest

Accident and Emergency Department An emergency department (ED), also known as an accident and emergency department (A&E), emergency room (ER), emergency ward (EW) or casualty department, is a medical treatment facility specializing in emergency medicine, the acute care of pati ...

is in

Cirencester Cirencester (, ; see below for more variations) is a market town in Gloucestershire, England, west of London. Cirencester lies on the River Churn, a tributary of the River Thames, and is the largest town in the Cotswolds. It is the home of ...

Education

The town has two schools, St Mary's Primary School and Sir William Romney's School, a secondary school which specialises in creative arts. In 2006 Sir William Romney's announced that it would be closing its Sixth Form centre, meaning students wishing to sit A-Levels now travel to

Stroud Stroud is a market town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England. It is the main town in Stroud District. The town's population was 13,500 in 2021. Below the western escarpment of the Cotswold Hills, at the meeting point of the Five ...

Filton College Filton is a town and civil parish in South Gloucestershire, England, north of Bristol. Along with nearby Patchway and Bradley Stoke, Filton forms part of the Bristol urban area and has become an overflow settlement for the city. Filton Church d ...

in Bristol.

Westonbirt School Westonbirt School is a co-educational independent day and boarding school for boys and girls aged 11 to 18 located near Tetbury in Gloucestershire in South West England. Founded in 1928. The historical Westonbirt House is part of the school. We ...

is an independent school for girls aged 11 to 18. Some Tetbury children travel further afield, with students at the two grammar schools,

Marling School Marling School is a grammar school with academy status for boys, with a co-educational Sixth Form located in Stroud, Gloucestershire, England. It is on the Cainscross Road, the main route out of Stroud towards the M5, and is situated next to the ...

for boys and Stroud High School for girls, both in Stroud, and some at the comprehensive Deer Park School in Cirencester.

Transport

Tetbury has bus services which serve local towns. Tetbury railway station closed in 1964, and the nearest railway station is now at Kemble; the nearest major airport is

Bristol Airport Bristol Airport , at Lulsgate Bottom, on the northern slopes of the Mendip Hills, in North Somerset, is the commercial airport serving the city of Bristol, England, and the surrounding area. It is southwest of Bristol city centre. Built on ...

General aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations with the exception of commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services ...

uses

Kemble Airport Cotswold Airport (formerly Kemble Airfield) is a private general aviation airport, near the village of Kemble, Gloucestershire, Kemble in Gloucestershire, England. Located southwest of Cirencester, it was built as a Royal Air Force (RAF) stat ...

at Kemble. The former airfield at

Long Newnton Long Newnton is a small village and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England (historically in Wiltshire), lying on the B4014 road between Malmesbury (2 km NW) and Tetbury (5 km S). It is near the SW end of the Cotswolds. The population ...

(1 mi southeast of Tetbury) was originally the home of the

Cotswold Gliding Club The Cotswold Gliding Club (CGC) is based at Aston Down airfield, between Cirencester and Stroud, Gloucestershire, Stroud in Gloucestershire, South West England. The club maintains a fleet of aircraft for training purposes, and is a centre for Gl ...

, which has since moved 6 mi to the north to

Aston Down Aston Down is in Gloucestershire, South West England, east of Minchinhampton, southeast of Stroud and west of Cirencester. The nearest settlement is the large village of Chalford, 1 mile (1.6 km) to the northwest. The airfield was used ...

. Tetbury is on the

A433 The A433 road is an A road and primary route in Gloucestershire, England. Route It starts at a junction with the A46 at Dunkirk north of junction 18 of the M4 and northeast of Chipping Sodbury. It runs northeast for to a junction wit ...

, with easy access to the M4 and

M5 motorway The M5 is a motorway in England linking the Midlands with the South West England, South West. It runs from junction 8 of the M6 motorway, M6 at West Bromwich near Birmingham to Exeter in Devon. Heading south-west, the M5 runs east of West Brom ...

s. The A4135 originates in Tetbury and proceeds westerly through

Beverston Beverston is a village and civil parish in the Cotswold district of Gloucestershire, England. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 132, decreasing to 129 at the 2011 census. The village is about two miles west of Tetbury. Beversto ...

Notable people

Present

Jet Black Brian John Duffy (26 August 1938 – 6 December 2022), professionally known as Jet Black, was an English drummer and founding member of punk rock/ new wave band The Stranglers. He last performed with the band in 2015, and officially retired in ...

, drummer and founder member of rock band

The Stranglers The Stranglers are an English rock band who emerged via the punk rock scene. Scoring 23 UK top 40 singles and 19 UK top 40 albums to date in a career spanning five decades, the Stranglers are one of the longest-surviving bands to have origina ...

King Charles III Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. He was the longest-serving heir apparent and Prince of Wales and, at age 73, became the oldest person to a ...

, has a private residence at Highgrove, Doughton, near Tetbury. *

Anne Hooper Anne Hooper (born 1941) is a British sex therapist and author, who pioneered therapy groups for women with sex problems in the 1970s and 1980s and who wrote UK newspaper columns on the subject of human sexuality in the 1990s. Books Since be ...

, journalist, author and counsellor *

Jake Meyer Jake Julian Barrington Meyer (born 20 January 1984) is a British mountaineer and adventurer. He achieved fame by becoming the youngest Briton to climb Mount Everest in 2005, aged 21 years 4 months. In doing so, Meyer also became the youngest m ...

, the youngest British person to climb

Mount Everest Mount Everest (; Tibetan: ''Chomolungma'' ; ) is Earth's highest mountain above sea level, located in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas. The China–Nepal border runs across its summit point. Its elevation (snow heig ...

Josh Kumra Josh Kumra (born 20 April 1991) is an English singer and songwriter. In 2011, Kumra co-wrote and provided vocals for English rapper Wretch 32's highest-charting single to date, " Don't Go", which reached number one in the UK Singles Chart. B ...

, singer/songwriter *

Neil Woodford Neil Russell Woodford CBE (born March 1960) is a former fund manager and the founding partner of the defunct Woodford Investment Management. Early life Woodford was born in March 1960. He was brought up in Berkshire and attended Maidenhead Gra ...

, investment fund manager *

David Mabberley Professor David John Mabberley , (born May 1948) is a British-born botanist, educator and writer. Among his varied scientific interests is the taxonomy of tropical plants, especially trees of the families Labiatae, Meliaceae and Rutaceae. He i ...

, Professor of botany, writer, and educator

Past

* Charlotte Eliza Collins, the noted diarist, married Edward Tenney Bousfield at Tetbury in 1853. * Cecil "Sam" Cook, Gloucestershire cricketer and umpire, died 1996 * Robert Crowley, stationer, poet and Protestant clergyman in the 16th century *

Alice Liddell Hargreaves Alice Pleasance Hargreaves (''née'' Liddell, ; 4 May 1852 – 16 November 1934), was an English woman who, in her childhood, was an acquaintance and photography subject of Lewis Carroll. One of the stories he told her during a boating trip beca ...

, inspiration behind

Alice in Wonderland ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (commonly ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English novel by Lewis Carroll. It details the story of a young girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creatur ...

* Ester Lewis, poet (1716–1794), married Robert Clark of Tetbury in 1760 and is buried there. *

Laurens van der Post Sir Laurens Jan van der Post, (13 December 1906 – 15 December 1996) was a South African Afrikaner writer, farmer, soldier, educator, journalist, humanitarian, philosopher, explorer and conservationist. He was noted for his interest in Jun ...

, owned a nearby farm in the 1930s, died 1996 *

Brian Trubshaw Ernest Brian Trubshaw, CBE, MVO (29 January 1924 – 24 March 2001) was a leading test pilot, and the first British pilot to fly Concorde, in April 1969. Biography Brian Trubshaw was born in Liverpool in 1924 although he grew up in Llane ...

, first British test-pilot of

Concorde The Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde () is a retired Franco-British supersonic airliner jointly developed and manufactured by Sud Aviation (later Aérospatiale) and the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Studies started in 1954, and France an ...

, died 2001

References

External links

Tetbury Online Town CouncilTetbury Town Football ClubTetbury Music FestivalTetbury Town GuideSt Mary's Primary SchoolSir William Romney's School
{{Authority control Towns in Gloucestershire Civil parishes in Gloucestershire Cotswold District Cotswolds