GLOUCESTER ROAD, Thornbury

Early History

Until well into the nineteenth century, although it was classified as a turnpike road for the use of horse drawn coaches between Bristol and Gloucester. Gloucester Road was a mere lane leading from Thornbury to Morton.  For a long time there was no official name for the street.  Early Thornbury records show the name of ‘Collestreete’ and ‘Colestreet Lane’ in the 17th Century.  In the census records of the 1800’s, it had assumed the name of Colwell Street Lane, sometimes called Colewell Street Road, although reference is made that it was also known as  ‘Collesters Lane’.

Colwell Street was the name given to the street we now know as ‘The Plain’.  The junction between The Plain and St John Street was known as ‘Bells Cross’ and the 1841 census shows ‘The Royal George’ was then known as ‘The Boars Head’ and this name continued in use until 1875.

Tracing the history of the individual houses is complicated by the fact that there was no formal house numbering until about 1953/4.  Sometimes houses within a terrace would have numbers and in some records we are lucky to find references to numbers 1-8 Laburnum Terrace.  The earliest reference to 'Laburnum Terrace' we have found is in the Accounts Book of John Hodges when he records building work done on '1 Laburnum Terrace' in 1885.

Some of the houses had names. ‘Selwood’ (now No. 22 Gloucester Road) first appears in the mid 1920’s and has been in use ever since.  At various times, other houses had names – ‘Durley’, Amberley’ etc but these were sometimes rather short lived.  We have been able to match these up with the existing house numbers, but there is another house called ‘Glyndwr’ in the 1920’s which might have been in the terrace.  This was the home of Joseph Thomason, the headmaster of the Council School and we would love to find out where he lived.

The spelling of the names also seems to vary a little.  Even within the same document, the terrace is spelled “Laburnum” and “Laburnam”.  Win Jenkins says that the terrace was called Laburnum Terrace because there was a laburnum tree in each garden when they were first built.  Are those laburnum trees in the early photograph above?

This photograph shows the top part of Gloucester  Road about the end of the nineteenth century.  On the left is Laburnum Terrace.  The cottages opposite were demolished in the 1960's and were replaced in turn by Shipp's garage and then flats.  The decorative archway is a floral arch of the sort that were popular in Thornbury and other small towns until the advent of the motor car made them an "obstruction of the highway".   A description of the arches appeared in an article in The Bristol Mercury and Daily Post of August 1884 which explains that Thornbury was decorated with floral arches for the flower show of that year and they appear to have used for other occasions until about 1902.  They seem to have been composed of evergreens and decorated with flowers and Chinese lanterns and they often had banners with a wide variety of mottoes, including "Health and Happiness" and "God Bless Our Queen."

This page was last updated: 28/08/2007