Time Team star to headline history festival

Time Team presenter and Blackadder star Tony Robinson will be one of the lead speakers at the Gloucester History Festival.

Robinson joins a line-up of 150 speakers at the two-week festival, which includes authors, actors and historians such as Dan Jones, Caroline Quentin and David Olusoga.

The event, which runs from 5-20 September, has expanded and will host 200 events including talks and tours showcasing the vast history of the city.

Sarah Smyth, the festival's curator, said: "We'll be launching a brand new historic walking trail for Gloucester because there are 600 listed buildings in Gloucester. It's the place with the most listed buildings of a small city outside York."

The festival will return to Blackfriars Priory, which closed to the public in June following Gloucester City Council's decision to step back from running the venue in order to help the council balance its budget.

Smyth added: "Despite the closure of Blackfriars Priory, we're delighted that we've been working with English Heritage and they've enabled us to put the festival on."

Dr Nicola Tallis, a Tudor historian will host a talk about Lady Jane Grey. She said we most commonly associate Jane with the Tower of London, but "she does have strong links with Gloucestershire and we should be shouting about those more".

Lady Jane Grey is known to have lived at the county's Sudeley Castle as an attendant to Henry VIII's widow Catherine Parr, and it has long been claimed that she was proclaimed Queen from Gloucester's New Inn - though this has been disputed.

"Jane, as far as we know, she never actually visited Gloucester," said Tallis.

"However, it is a really important city for those who want to understand her story."

This will be the 16th year of the Gloucester History Festival, which takes place biannually.

As well as ticketed events, there will be a number of free events taking place across the city.

Smyth said: "We've doubled the size of our free programme, which happens in the Scriptorium at Blackfriars, which is Britain's oldest library built in 1249."

"For the first time, 20 of our paid-for events, anybody under 25 can come to those for free."

Booking for the festival opens on 24 July at 10:00 BST.

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