The old Roman road from Chester to Manchester: from North to Bristol, Plymouth, Melrose
Outside Gloucester but included in the parishes of some of its churches lay the hamlets of Barton Street, Kingsholm, Longford, Tuffley, Twigworth, and Wotton. the extraparochial places of Littleworth, North Hamlet, South Hamlet, and the vill of Wotton, early in the eighteenth century. Fields and meadows with neighbouring parishes, particularly Barnwood and Upton St. Leonards, pieces of neighbouring parishes, lay east of the river Severn's eastern channel and in the south took in the west side of Robins Wood Hill. In places it was bounded by watercourses, including the Hatherley or Broadboard brook on parts of the north, the Sud brook on the southeast at Saintbridge, and Daniel's brook on part of the south-west. West of Saintbridge there was evidently a dwelling below Robins Wood Hill in 1531 on the site of the farmhouse called Boddenhams in 1619, when John Robins bought it from the owners of Upton St. Leonards manor. It later belonged to the Hyett family and was known as Starveall or Tredworth Farm in 1780.
In the north-east corner of Upton towards Hucclecote a farmstead called the New House in 1799 was presumably on the site of a tenement of the same name, which belonged to St. Oswald's Priory in 1498 and was described as in Hucclecote when the Crown alienated it in 1575. There was little early settlement in the area included in South Hamlet, which in 1801 had 8 houses and a population of 60. The principal buildings were those at the site of Llanthony Priory, west of the Bristol road.
Divisions of land between the Crown, Gloucester Abbey, and St. Oswald's church. Much, though not all, of the extraparochial land belonged at one time to Llanthony Priory. The boundaries of the hamlets were defined at inclosure in 1799 and later. The parochial division within them was complex: Tuffley, most of Barton Street and Wotton, and parts of Kingsholm, Longford, and Twigworth were in St. Mary de Lode parish; most of Kingsholm and Twigworth and parts of Longford and Wotton were in St. Catherine's (earlier St. Oswald's) parish; and parts of Barton Street were in St. Michael's parish.
In the mid 13th century Gloucester Abbey and the archbishop of York had responsibility for maintaining Cole bridge, which carried the road over the Wotton brook. Ermin Street has remained an important thoroughfare, linking Gloucester with London and Oxford, and in the mid 13th century. Wotton and Barnwood were responsible for, and travellers contributed to, the repair of a bridge over the Wotton brook. The low-lying land outside Gloucester was not suitable for early settlement, which until the early 19th century remained small and mostly restricted to the main roads.
Most building took place around the junction of the Twkesbury road with the Sandhurst and Wotton roads where settlement remained predominantly rural in the early 17th century. It included the medieval White Barn north of the Wotton road (later Gallows Lane), at the entrance to which had once been a green, perhaps that belonging to the lord of Kingsholm manor in 1304. To the south-west, by the road to the blind gate, was Tulwell, the site of a manor described in the mid 14th century as a hamlet of St. Oswald's parish.