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City of Gloucester enclosure map, 1799

By the 600s, Gloucester was under the control of the Hwicce (one of the Mercian tribes) and from this time an Anglo-Saxon great hall – described as a ‘palace’ – existed at Kingsholm.  It is known that it had ancillary buildings (including a chapel) and by the time of Edward the Confessor, the ‘great hall of the Royal Manor at Kingsholm’ was a meeting place of the King’s Great Council - the Witanagemot - raising Gloucester’s status to that of Winchester and London.  The early Norman kings also used it as a royal residence – at least until it was superseded by Gloucester Castle in the 1100s – and it seems certain that it was from here that William I ordered the Domesday Book.  The exact location is not known with certainty although it is believed to be on or around Kingsholm Square, roughly on the fields numbered 122, 123, 134 and 129 on the 1799 enclosure map.