Tetbury Cotswold pillared market house clock - Tetbury, Gloucestershire, Cotswolds, South West,England, UK

Tetbury is a small town and civil parish inside the Cotswold district in England. It lies on the site of an ancient hill fort, on which an Anglo-Saxon monastery was founded, probably by Ine of Wessex, in 681. The population of the parish was 5, 250 in the 2001 census, increasing to 5, 472 at the 2011 census. During the Middle Ages, Tetbury became an important market for Cotswold wool and yarn. The Tetbury Woolsack Races, founded 1972, is an annual competition where participants must carry a 60-pound (27 kg) sack of wool up and down a steep hill (Gumstool Hill). The Tetbury Woolsack Races take place on the "late May Bank Holiday", the last Monday in May each year. Notable buildings in the town include the Church House, Market House, built in 1655 and the late-eighteenth century Gothic revival parish church of St Mary the Virgin and St Mary Magdalene and much of the rest of the town centre, dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Market House is a fine example of a Cotswold pillared market house and is still in use as a meeting place and market. Other attractions include the Police Bygones Museum. Chavenage House, Highgrove House and Westonbirt Arboretum lie just outside the town.