Peter Mundy's Trip to Gloucester in 1639 and the Importance of Historical Tourists

In July 1639 Peter Mundy, a man in his early forties, stepped out of a horse-drawn coach onto the cobbled streets of Gloucester. He later recorded in his diary that it was ‘a reasonable, handsome, quiett and cleanly place’. A pair of stocks were fixed into the ground near the gaol that, he noted, ‘has about 20 holes and would hold a good company’. Walking into the centre of the city in the warm summer, he squinted up at the spire of St Nicholas Church and noticed that it rose, bent, into the sky. The spire was removed in the late eighteenth century, over concerns for the safety of the church’s congregation and passers-by.