The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

11-1 THE BRITISH ISLES.
proprietary colleges, both for boys and girls, take a high rank, and are supplemented
liy numerous private schools.
Stroud, to the south of Gloucester, in a valley of the Cotswolds, is one of the
principal seats of the clothing trade of the county, an industry which emplovs
likewise many of the inhabitants of the small towns of Bislcy and Minchin-
hampton, the one to the east, the other to the south-east of it. At Lypiatt Park,
an old monastic establishment, half-way on the road to Bisley, the Gunpowder
Plot is said to have been concocted.
Berkeley, in the centre of a fertile grazing country, exports real Gloucester
cheese. Its castle, with a keep erected in 1093, is still inhabited, and the dungeon
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Fig. 64.
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Cheltenham.
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over the gatehouse, in which King Edward II. was murdered in 1327, is
pointed out to curious visitors. Bursley and Wotton-under-Edgc, both prettily
situated towns on the slope of the Cotswolds, to the south-east of Berkeley, are
engaged in the clothing trade. Near Dursley there are valuable quarries of "Bath
stone, which hardens on exposure to the air, but is not very durable. Tethitry,
still farther to the east, on an eminence overlooking the source of the Avon, is
famous for its corn market. Of the many towns in the valley of the Avon, Malmes-
bury, Chippenham, Melksham, and Bradford belong to the county of Wiltshire,
and Bath lies within Somersetshire ; but Bristol, the most important of all, only
7 miles above the mouth of the river, is situated almost wholly within the borders
of Gloucestershire.