Tewkesbury Gloucestershire Lewis Topographical Dictionary of England 1845
Tuesday, September 8 TEWKESBURY (St. Mary), a borough, market-town, and parish, having separate jurisdiction, and the head of a union, locally in the Lower division of the hundred of Tewkesbury, E. division of the county of Gloucester, 10 miles (N. N. E.) from Gloucester, and 103 (W. N. W.) from London ; containing, with the township of Mythe, and that of Southwick with Park, 5862 inhabitants. This place, which is of great antiquity, is supposed to have derived its name from Theot, a Saxon recluse, who, during the latter period of the heptarchy, founded a hermitage here, where he lived in solitude and devotion, and after whom it was called Theotisberg, from which its present appellation is deduced. In 1715, a monastery was founded here by the two brothers Odo and Dodo, dukes of Mercia, and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, which, after having experienced great injury during the Danish wars, became a cell to the abbey of Cranborne in Dorsetshire.
