About
Westgate Street Gloucester is one of the main streets of the city of Gloucester.
Today, Westgate is renowned for food, fashion and family businesses. There are tables on the street, and in hidden courtyards, where you can enjoy good food and drink. There are butchers and bakers and, yes, even a candlestick maker in Westgate Street.
Upper Westgate Street had become the main market area of the city by the 13th century and many important trades were established here by the Middle Ages, some of which exist to this day.
Part of the street was known as the Coiffery, because of the head-dress and hat makers that clustered here. It still could be, for a different reason, as there are no fewer than five hairdressers in the street. In medieval times, Westgate Street was two narrow lanes. Look down at the street pavings. Dark brown bricks outline the position of the old buildings that filled the centre of the street, that were later demolished to create the wide boulevard that is Westgate today.
You can get a feel for what it must have been like in those days by squeezing along Mercers Entry (between the Woolwich and the Stroud & Swindon Building Societies); the last remaining tenth century side street still in public use.
Come back into Westgate Street and look up, above the modern shop fronts. There are many medieval merchants town houses hidden behind the modern facades, dating back as far as the fourteenth century.
The city’s finest timber-framed building is at number 26 Westgate Street, now a book shop. From Maverdine Lane, which runs alongside the building, you have the best view of the overhanging oriel windows and leaded lights (some with original glass) of this superb 16th century, four-storey town house.