Saint Mary's Minster Berkeley Gloucestershire

About Berkeley

Wherever you go in Berkeley, you stumble over bits of English history.

It is hard to believe that this little town was a Saxon Borough of such note that it had its own Mint.

That Berkeley was the site of the brutal murder of one king of England, and the location of a plot to overthrow another.

That one of its priests was one of the first translators of the Bible into the vernacular.

That from its harbour men set out for Virginia and celebrated the first Thanksgiving a year before the Pilgrim Fathers

That a local country doctor, using his observation of rural life, set in course the eradication of a killer disease.

And in modern times it was the site for the first nuclear power station in Britain.

Few towns of a comparable size in the world can boast, as Berkeley can, that as recently as the early 20th Century, they had an inhabited castle, a Minster church, a port, a magistrates’ court, a large coaching inn and 32 other pubs!

Come along on a tour of the town and see some of the most historic places in the area.