The Eastgate Shopping Centre (formerly The Mall, Eastgate and The Mall, Gloucester) is a two-story indoor shopping centre in

Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east o ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. It opened its

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cul ...

entrance on 3 July 1973.

History

Initially, the site was a market which was opened in 1786 at the same time as the

Southgate Street Southgate Street is one of the ancient streets in the City of Gloucester, so named because its southern end was originally the location of the south gate in the city's walls. The part beyond the gate as far as Severn Street was sometimes known as ...

market. In 1855, the Eastgate Street market was rebuilt and modernised. The indoor shopping centre was built between 1966 and 1974 during a large redevelopment of Gloucester City centre. The plans for this development were written by G.A Jellicoe in 1962 and also led to the demolition of several buildings included the Bell Hotel and medieval streets in the north-east and south-east areas of the city centre. Eastgate Shopping Centre consists of a large indoor street, with a ninety degree intersection in the middle. It runs from Eastgate Street to Southgate Street, with a side entrance to

Greyfriars Greyfriars, Grayfriars or Gray Friars is a term for Franciscan Order of Friars Minor, in particular, the Conventual Franciscans. The term often refers to buildings or districts formerly associated with the order. Former Friaries * Greyfriars, Bed ...

. The indoor street is lined with shops on both sides. At this time the centre also included a new market hall and a large

Woolworths Woolworth, Woolworth's, or Woolworths may refer to: Businesses * F. W. Woolworth Company, the original US-based chain of "five and dime" (5¢ and 10¢) stores * Woolworths Group (United Kingdom), former operator of the Woolworths chain of shop ...

store which had entrances onto both Eastgate and Southgate street. The centre linked to the

Longsmith Street Longsmith Street is a street in Gloucester that runs from Bearland in the north to Southgate Street in the south. The street includes a number of Listed buildings in England, listed buildings: * 2 Longsmith Street & 28 Southgate Street * 4 Longs ...

car park and Kings Walk car parks. A pedestrian

footbridge A footbridge (also a pedestrian bridge, pedestrian overpass, or pedestrian overcrossing) is a bridge designed solely for pedestrians.''Oxford English Dictionary'' While the primary meaning for a bridge is a structure which links "two points at ...

on the second floor spanned over Eastgate Street to link the Eastgate and Kings Walk shopping centres however, this has now been closed off. In 1994 redevelopment work was carried out which included some of the columns being faced with architectural features and the

Beatrix Potter Helen Beatrix Potter (, 28 July 186622 December 1943) was an English writer, illustrator, natural scientist, and conservationist. She is best known for her children's books featuring animals, such as '' The Tale of Peter Rabbit'', which was ...

clock and figures were added next to the market. The cemetery from

, founded in 1231, is now under the Eastgate shopping centre. The Mall Fund bought Eastgate shopping centre in 2004 for £40 million from Catalyst Capital, then Rockspring Property Investment Managers and The Other Retail Group brought it in 2010 for £136 million. In January 2019, Gloucester City Council bought the shopping centre in the region of £12 million from Rockspring Property Investment Managers and The Other Retail Group. On 23 March 2009, Heart Gloucestershire was launched from the Bridge Studios within the shopping centre.

Future Plans

Between February 2018 and June 2018, work will be carried out to renovate the first floor of the shopping centre. The floor will be turned into a Digital Retail innovation Centre which will test and develop “disruptive digital innovations”, such as

Robot A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may be ...

s and

Hologram Holography is a technique that enables a wavefront to be recorded and later re-constructed. Holography is best known as a method of generating real three-dimensional images, but it also has a wide range of other applications. In principle, i ...

s, in attempt to turn the shopping centre into a Digital Innovation Hub. Eleven small shop units are also being built. By 2025, it is planned to become a national centre for developing Holographic Virtual Employees and Robotic Security Guards. Gloucestershire's Local Enterprise Partnership program has provided £400,000 to fund this project.

Portico Entrance

The Portico entrance was built by Medland & Maberly in 1856 and was originally the entrance to the Eastgate market. In 1973, the portico was moved down Eastgate Street by about 25 feet from its original location to form the entrance to the new Eastgate Shopping Centre. The portico is made out of classical stone blocks. It is built in the monumental

italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian ...

style. The exterior consists of three arches with two central piers framed by a corinthian half column and two end piers framed by rectangular columns. All of the piers are set upon pedestals. Above the arches there is a crowning

pediment Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pedim ...

with a clock in the middle flanked by seated figures sculpted in

high relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...

Father time Father Time is a personification of time. In recent centuries he is usually depicted as an elderly bearded man, sometimes with wings, dressed in a robe and carrying a scythe and an hourglass or other timekeeping device. As an image, "Father Ti ...

is on the right and Ceres is the figure on the left. The crowning pediment supports an arched bell turret flanked by scrolls and topped with another pediment. There were pairs of Iron gates under each arch of the Portico. However, these were not replaced when it was rebuilt after being moved from the original site. In 2015, the original Iron gates were found in a council yard by the Gloucester

Rotary Club Rotary International is one of the largest service organizations in the world. Its stated mission is to "provide service to others, promote integrity, and advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through hefellowship of business, prof ...

. The portico became a

grade II-listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

building in 1975.

Tailor of Gloucester clock- AKA Beatrix Potter Clock

In 1994, due to the redevelopment of the shopping centre a large

fish tank An aquarium (plural: ''aquariums'' or ''aquaria'') is a vivarium of any size having at least one transparent side in which aquatic plants or animals are kept and displayed. fishkeeping, Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amp ...

, inside the shopping centre next to the market entrance, was removed and the Beatrix Potter clock was added to replace it. The clock featured an animated Tailor of Gloucester,

mice A mouse ( : mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus'' ...

owl Owls are birds from the order Strigiformes (), which includes over 200 species of mostly solitary and nocturnal birds of prey typified by an upright stance, a large, broad head, binocular vision, binaural hearing, sharp talons, and feathers a ...

and

cat The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members of ...

and took approximately fifteen months to build. On the hour, the clock would chime then music was played and all the figures would move. You would find crowds of people waiting to look at it. In 2013, another redevelopment off the shopping centre took place the clock was removed having been there since 1994. A petition to save the clock was created but the shopping centre donated it to the Pied Piper Appeal.

References

{{Buildings and structures in Gloucester Shopping malls established in 1973 Grade II listed buildings in Gloucestershire Shopping centres in Gloucestershire