Eastgate Street

During the siege of Gloucester in 1643, the main Royalist engineering effort was engaged in mining operations against the east gate.

It was initially the least favoured of the four Gloucester gates, but became established as an important commercial route in the early-16th century following the development of the Stroud Valley cloth industry.

In 1666 Sir Thomas Rich donated a house on Eastgate Street for use as the school that took his name (and was also known as the Bluecoat Hospital).

In the 18th century Gloucester was a social centre for county gentry, and the Crawley-Boevey family of Flaxley maintained an old gabled house on Eastgate Street.

Due to the increase in wheeled transport, obstacles to traffic were removed from the gate streets in the mid-18th century.

The street was widened at The Cross by the rebuild on a different alignment of all but the tower of St. Michael's Church, which was re-consecrated in 1851.

Large stores began to replace the historic buildings along the street in the inter-war period.

St. Michael's Church was closed early in the Second World War and, due to a declining congregation, all but the tower demolished to make way for shops in 1956.

The construction of Boots on the site of the Co-op in 1980 gave the city a view of the archaeological remains of the medieval east gate bastion in the Eastgate Viewing Chamber but destroyed the archaeological remains of the Roman wall below on the rest of the site.Only a small amount of the street's historic heritage survives today, and there are just six listed sites between gate and The Cross compared to the twenty-seven listed sites along upper Westgate Street.