Beatrix Potter trail opens in Gloucester city centre

A trail celebrating the anniversary of the publication of The Tailor of Gloucester has opened in the city.

A set of 10 brass plaques depicting Beatrix Potter's mice will be hidden along Westgate Street.

The trail opened on Friday, 120 years since the tale was published, featuring engravings by artist Ella Daniel Lowe.

Director of the House of the Tailor of Gloucester museum Paul James said: "It's an iconic story for the city and very important towards its heritage."

He added: "It's a very important story for Gloucester, perhaps the city's best known story and we want to do all we can to keep it alive.

The Tailor of Gloucester story was based on a real life incident.

John Samuel Prichard was commissioned to make a suit for the mayor, and he supposedly returned to his shop on a Monday morning to find the suit mysteriously completed except for one buttonhole, with a note saying: "No more twist!"

'Twist' referred to the silk thread with which to stitch the last button.

Mr Prichard then encouraged the fiction that the suit had been finished by fairies in the night, and the myth became a local legend.

In May 1894, Potter travelled to Gloucester and stayed with her cousins, the Huttons, at Harescombe Lodge.

Potter was then introduced to the story of the tailor of Gloucester and reimagined the tale in her quintessential style.

In Potter's version, the tailor is tasked with making a suit for the mayor's wedding, and the 10 mice finish the coat to thank him for saving them from his preying cat.

Also as part of the anniversary celebrations, a ceremony was held at Gloucester Cathedral on 11 October, attended by the grandson of the real tailor of Gloucester, alongside the mayor of Gloucester and descendants of the Hutton family.

While the original tailor's shop was on Westgate Street, Potter chose a house in the nearby College Court as her setting for the tale.

This is now the House of the Tailor of Gloucester museum.

The Beatrix Potter trail is a collaborative project between the museum and Gloucester City Council's Cathedral Quarter heritage project.

The local history society will be unveiling its own commemorative plaque for the tailor on the 90th anniversary of Mr Pritchard's death, in March 2024.

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