Set on the confluence of two major navigable rivers, the Severn and the Warwickshire Avon, Tewkesbury should have been a prosperous place. Goods imported at Bristol found their way up-river to Tewkesbury from Gloucester; and carried down in the characteristic river boats, the trows, was the agricultural produce of the vales of Evesham and Tewkesbury. The town served as an entrepôt for grain supplies, sent as far as west Wales. CSP Dom. 1629-31, p.
Gloucestershire was a county of very marked physical divisions, the most obvious of which was the River Severn. West of the Severn below Gloucester lay the Forest of Dean, an important source of naval timber. In the Vale of Gloucestershire, further east, were Gloucester itself and above it, Tewkesbury, both parliamentary boroughs. The hinterland of Gloucester was incorporated into the city government as the ‘Inshire’.
As the ‘principal grain port on the River Severn’, Gloucester was an important city, albeit one with an economy in transition. VCH Glos. iv. 77. Its previous mainstay had been the weaving of heavy broadcloth, but this industry had collapsed. A weaver in 1634 marvelled at how over 100 looms had been reduced to just six or seven, and other clothing trades were badly affected.
In 1642, had it not been for the national political convulsions, a local annalist might have noted the passing of a century since Bristol had become a city. Bristol Charters 1509-1899 ed. Latham (Bristol Rec. Soc. xii), 5. It had grown enormously since the 1540s. When the diarist John Evelyn visited Bristol in 1654, he described it as ‘emulating London, not for its large extent, but manner of building, shops, bridge, traffic, exchange, market place etc’. Evelyn Diary ed. de Beer, iii.
Cirencester was an important wool town, situated on the southern slopes of the Cotswolds. Its glory was the Friday wool market, in this period still counted the greatest in England. A Monday market in provisions, cattle and grain provided an important focus for trade with the rich agricultural hinterland. Glos. RO, P86/1/IN6/3, f. 80. It was not an incorporated borough. Instead, the town was a hundred of Gloucestershire of itself, and was divided into seven wards, with two high constables and 14 wardsmen appointed at the court leet.