Below Tewkesbury several pleasant places, country-houses, parks and quiet villages are situated on the lowland, or on the gentle undulations which diversify the width of the valley, but few are of special interest, except the little church of Deerhurst, standing near the waterside, which was built, as an inscription now preserved at Oxford has recorded, in the year 1056. The greater part of the comparatively lofty tower, with some portions of the body of the church, belongs to this age; but the latter to a considerable extent has been rebuilt at various dates, and its plan altered. There was a priory of earlier foundation, but of this nothing of interest remains. But for some miles a great tower has been rising more and more distinctly above the lush water-meadows, as did that of Worcester on the higher reaches of the Severn. It is another cathedral, on a scale yet grander than the former one, the centre of the old city of Gloucester, which for not a few years has been rapidly increasing; but all about the precincts and in the original streets are many picturesque remnants of the last and preceding centuries, while its churches surpass those of Worcester. Gloucester, as it guards the Severn, and is one of the natural approaches to Wales, very early became a place of mark. An important station for the Roman troops, it was in the days of Bede a very notable town, not only in the Mercian kingdom, but also in all Britain. At Gloucester the first of its Christian kings founded a monastery about eighty years after the landing of Augustine; and when the Dane began to harry England the town had not seldom to fight and sometimes to suffer. Saxon and the earlier Norman kings often visited it. Probably in few cathedrals out of London--except, perhaps, Winchester--were royal worshippers so frequent. Henry III., a boy of ten, was crowned here, and had a particular affection for the town. Hither the murdered Edward II. was brought for burial; Parliaments were held in the city; and most of the kings up to the sixteenth century paid it at least one visit. But when the great Civil War broke out, Gloucester took the side of the Parliament. So, presently, the Royal troops and Charles himself appeared before its walls. For about four weeks it was closely invested, and its defenders were in sore straits, till Essex raised the siege. As a penalty the walls were destroyed after the Restoration. That did no real harm; the city was quietly prosperous, till it was quickened to a more active life by becoming a railway junction, when the "break of gauge" provided many a subject for _Punch_. [Illustration: THE SEVERN, FROM TEWKESBURY TO THE SEA.]