MUSEUM & SHOP
HOUSE OF THE TAILOR OF GLOUCESTER
This print of College Court can be purchased from the shop
The Tailor of Gloucester
Welcome to the official home of the Tailor of Gloucester Beatrix Potter Museum and Shop in Gloucester.
The House of the Tailor of Gloucester can be found at No.9 College Court just off Westgate Street Gloucester GL1 2NJ ( streetmap ).
This charming shop and museum is open to the public every day where you will be served by our enthusiastic and knowledgeable volunteers. The house, pictured left is the original building used by Beatrix Potter in her wonderful story
The Tailor of Gloucester.
The Shop & Museum opening hours are :
| Mon to Sat | 10:00 to 5:00 |
| Sunday | 12:00 to 5:00 |
Telephone: (01452) 422 856
Free entry to both the Shop & Museum.
The seeing eye - Beatrix Potter: artist, writer, countrywoman
Beatrix Potter's artfully written and beautifully illustrated stories have been nursery favourites for more than 100 years. Peter Rabbit, Benjamin Bunny and Mrs Tiggy-winkle still come alive for countless children - and their parents, who remember the tales of the small animals from their own childhood.
Yet these stories, which continue to charm and delight, came from the pen of a woman who had no children of her own and whose childhood was not as happy as it might have been.
Their author became a passionate countrywoman and skilled farmer, although she was born to a wealthy upper middle-class family in London, a world away from the northern countryside where her characters were brought vividly to life by the genius of her words and pictures.
The Pitkin Guide to Beatrix Potter covers all aspects of Beatrix Potter's life.
Price - £5
Postage and Packing - £1
Hover over the thumbnails to see a larger image
The Tailor of Gloucester
When gentlemen wore ruffles and gold-lace waistcoats
Many of Beatrix Potter's stories begin 'Once upon a time....'. The Tailor of Gloucester is unusual in that the story takes place at a specific period - 'the time of swords and periwigs' - about 1735 to 1785.
Beatrix sought inspiration for the Mayor of Gloucester's coat and embroidered waistcoat in the 18th-century clothes owned by her local museum, the V&A. She wrote to her publisher, Norman Warne:
'I have been delighted to find I may draw some most beautiful 18th-century clothes at the South Kensington Museum. I had been looking at them for a long time in an inconvenient dark corner of the Goldsmith's Court, but had no idea they could be taken out of the case. The clerk says I could have any article put on a table in one of the offices, which will be most convenient.'
(Letter to Norman Warne, 27th March 1903).
Her sketches are so accurate that it is possible to identify the original garments, including the mayor's waistcoat, 'worked with poppies and corn-flowers', in the V&A collections.
In May 1903 Beatrix made many sketches of Gloucester whilst visiting friends in nearby Stroud. The street scenes in her story, particularly that of the tailor's shop in College Court, depict actual places in the city.