The Gloucester is a traditional breed of the West Country of England, particularly of Gloucestershire, the Cotswolds and the Severn Valley.

[4]: 188  The decline continued for much of the twentieth century, accelerated by the foot-and-mouth outbreak of 1923–1924, the Great Depression in the 1930s, and the Second World War.

[4]: 188 Some efforts were made to increase the competitiveness of the Gloucester: in 1929 Seymour Bathurst, 7th Earl Bathurst, acquired a White Park bull from the Dynevor herd with the aim of increasing the size of his Gloucester cattle at Cirencester Park, which may also have received some intromission of Friesian blood; the Wick Court herd was apparently influenced by the Jersey.

[7] In 1966 the Bathurst stock was sold off, and the breed society became dormant; in 1972 the Wick Court herd, the last remaining, was also dispersed.

[4]: 188 [5] A new herd-book was started; the first volume, printed in 1975, listed about seventy cattle, including twelve originating in the Bathurst herd.

[5] The standard colouration is mahogany or black-brown on the body, with black legs and head, and with characteristic white finching along the spine, down through the tail, and along the belly; bulls are generally darker than cows.