Lily's Alley
Another main feature to Tewkesbury that adds much character to the town is its amazing amount of ancient alleyways to explore. Tewkesbury's main streets are full of alleyways for you to walk down and explore, these alleyways being one of the unique features that has made tewkesbury so famous and adds much character to this already charming town. Stepping into one of these dark narrow alleys really is like stepping back in time, and as you slowly walk through you can really begin to imagine how life must have been back in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the conditions that people lived in. All in all there are roughly 30 alleyways remaining intact today, but originally there were thought to have been around 90 of them, most being lost to decay or renovation of the land around. Tewkesbury's alleys mainly started to appear during the 17th century due to the increased pressure for housing and due to the land shortage around the town because of the floodplains and rivers making land unsuitable to build on. The only way to expand was to build behind the main towns existing properties, or add more storeys to existing ones, and alleyways were how these new properties/storeys were reached.
As the alleys were only built just wide enough for a man to pass on foot, many alleys were so narrow that some of the buildings along them almost touched at the eaves above.
(30th October 2003)
