Gloucester Cathedral
Gloucester, Gloucestershire
Gloucester Cathedral has been a place of Christian worship continuously for over 1,300 years: our vision is to seek to be 'in tune with heaven and in touch with daily life'.
Our church could be described as a quintessential Cotswold stone church, featured in the BBC book, Songs of Praise: The Nation’s favourite Churches by Andrew Barr. The present church is the second to have been built on this site. The tower and base of the east wall of the chancel remain from the original 15th century church, but most of the present church dates from the Victorian rebuild of 1859-60. Designed by the architect FS Waller in Early Decorated style it is said to be one of his best rural churches. The beautiful stained glass windows by O’Connor are a particular feature, as well as an exceptional pair based on the Arthurian legend featuring a Captain killed in the First World War. The font, of late Tudor date, is a fine example of the type. It is one of only nine Tudor fonts in Gloucestershire.
In addition to the architectural legacy of the building, we are developing a project to record and better understand the lives of the people who have been here before us and bring this to the attention of a wider audience.
Foremost in this is our connection to the signing of the American Declaration of Independence through Button Gwinnett, whose father was vicar of this church for fifty years. Button was an opportunist who ventured to the American colony, became a landowning politician and as such, is the second signatory on this defining document in world history. We recently restored Button's parents' tomb which has become a destination for American tourists interested in their country's heritage. We find this connection to our small rural parish an intriguing reminder of how the threads of our stories entwine in unexpected and amazing directions. An illustrated booklet tells Button's colourful story and the project to restore the tomb, which has its own mystery.
We house an expanding collection of local history and have combined this with the wildlife and natural capital of our church and its surroundings through an annual celebration of place and belonging in the natural world, in our Tracks festival each autumn. We are working to progress through the A Rocha’s Eco church programme with plans to achieve Silver award in this coming year.