The strength of the metal-working industry in Gloucester is reflected in the surviving deeds from the late 12th century to the early 14th, which mention numerous smiths and farriers and, less often, representatives of specialized crafts, including locksmiths, cutlers, lorimers, a buckler, a knifesmith, and three combmakers (pectifabri), presumably making combs for use in the town's woollen industry. One of the most famous Gloucester trades is recorded from the later 13th century with mentions of Thomas the bellfounder in 1274 and Hugh the bellfounder at about the same date.
In the thirteenth century and among Englishmen, for the free merchants class emerged but slowly until the latter half of the reign of Edward I Occasional instances of English merchants trading in Gascony are indeed to be found, as the men of Winchelsea and Shoreham in 1265, but for the most part such activity was limited to men who also had a public character, as Rokesle the Chamberlain and Henry le Waleys, who was Mayor of London and of Bordeaux in consecutive years (A D 1274, 1275). Of those whose activities were purely commercial the first to trade extensively were the Gascons, as is abundantly proved by the large number of recognisances for sums owed by Londoners to Gascons in the early part of the reign of Edward I, while there is very little contemporary mention of the English dealing except as taverners The presence of Gascons of Bordeaux, Bayonne, Bazas, Langon, and Libourne was one of the most marked features of thirteenth century London, while the merchants of La Réole frequented one district so greatly as to earn for it the name.
In a mid 13th-century list of English towns and their characteristic products or other associations Gloucester is represented by the phrase 'iron of Gloucester'. Its control of the land routes out of the Forest of Dean made Gloucester the natural centre for working the iron produced by that region, and ironworking remained one of the town's most important industries throughout the Middle Ages. It was an industry that was stimulated by the military and naval requirements of the Crown, as indicated by the earliest record, the 36 dicras of iron and 100 rods of ductile iron for nails for the king's ships owed as part of the farm in 1066. In the years 1171–3 equipment supplied to Henry II, mainly for the Irish expedition, and allowed for in the Gloucester reeve's account, included nails, horseshoes, mattocks, ironwork for spades, arrows, 'engines', and kitchen utensils; in 1212 and 1214 the sheriff of the county acquired for the king, probably from Gloucester craftsmen, anchors and crossbow bolts; in 1228 the bailiffs of the town sent two smiths and other workmen with axes, mattocks, and iron for making rock-cutting tools to Henry III at Kerry (Mont.) where he was on a campaign against the Welsh; and in 1242 the king ordered the men of Gloucester to make 10,000 horseshoes and 100,000 nails and deliver them at Portsmouth within 20 days.
An earlier cloth industry postponed from Aquitaine was made in 1236 by Henry III to Bonafusus de Sancta Columba or Bordeaux. Exportation of wool was largely superseded by cloth and was a monopoly of a city (Calais) that traded and halted in the reign of Edward III. In 1364, merchants of Drogheda and Waterford would take their wool to Calais and bring nothing more to their country unless to take a cargo to Gascony where Ireland and the West of England saw the lengthy voyage ruinous to the Channel to double freights for their imports.
Gloucester castle was also an important source of iron in times of unrest: in the early months of 1264 numbers of smiths, as many as eight in one week, were put to work making crossbow bolts for the garrison. The products of Gloucester's iron industry were also used by the Crown for its building operations. In the 1170s large quantities of nails were sent for use on houses under construction at Winchester; in 1224 stocks of 'good Gloucester iron', kept at Southampton and Northampton, were ordered for the king's works at Bedford; and Gloucester iron was used in 1261 for the works at Windsor.
Masons, plumbers, soapmakers, a horner (c. 1200), a parchment maker (c. 1260), and a potter, who had land at Fete Lane outside the north gate in the mid 13th century, were among other varied trades recorded in the town during the period. Of the masons the most significant was the king's mason John of Gloucester (d. 1260), who was employed on works at Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, and Gloucester castle.
At the same period as clothmaking and later, dyers and fullers held land near lower Northgate Street and Brook Street on the north-east fringes of the town, evidently making use of the water of the river Twyver. The dyers were the most prosperous of the clothworkers, being most often mentioned in the surviving sources, which are mainly property deeds. The weavers of the town were numerous enough to have some collective identity by the 1160s when they were paying an annual sum of 20s. to the bailiffs, but whether for the right to have a trade organization or for some other trading privilege is not known.
Clothmaking was the only industry that came near to rivalling ironworking. It was established in the town by the later 12th century: Wulward the fuller was one of the wealthiest burgesses in 1173 and a fuller and three weavers were recorded among the inhabitants of St. Nicholas's parish at the same period. It was in the riverside areas of that parish that the industry naturally became concentrated, a street near the quay becoming known as the fullers' street. About 1230 eight different dyers were recorded as occupying land, or witnessing deeds of land, in that street or the surrounding area, and in 1247 three dyers were presented for encroachments on the river bank.