Tewkesbury

Tewkesbury: Royal Hop Pole

Tewkesbury, town (parish), Tewkesbury borough (district), administrative and historic county of Gloucestershire, southwest-central England. It is situated at the confluence of the Rivers Severn and Avon (Upper, or Warwickshire, Avon). The town is the administrative centre for the borough.

A small Benedictine abbey was founded in 715 on the site of the present Abbey Church of St. Mary’s. The later medieval abbey was consecrated in 1123 and rebuilt after a fire in 1178; considerable additions were made in the 15th century. At the time of the dissolution of the monasteries (1536–39), the choir, transepts, and square Norman tower of the abbey were purchased by the townsfolk, but much of the remainder of the building was destroyed.

The feudal earls of Gloucester made Tewkesbury a free borough in the 12th century, and the royal charter of liberties granted in 1698 remains in force. In 1471, during the Wars of the Roses, the Battle of Tewkesbury was an important Yorkist victory. Among buildings of architectural interest is the Black Bear (1308), perhaps the oldest inn in Gloucestershire; another inn, the Hop Pole, is mentioned in The Pickwick Papers by the 19th-century novelist Charles Dickens.

Tewkesbury, reputedly famous for mustard in William Shakespeare’s day, is a centre for boating and angling, especially on the slow-flowing Avon. The town’s main industries are flour milling, engineering, and boatbuilding. Pop. (2001) 10,016; (2011)10,704.