Gloucester the remains (a gateway and some walls) of Llanthony Secunda Priory, a cell of the mother abbey in the Vale of Ewyas, Monmouthshire, which in the reign of King Edward IV became the secondary establishment. The Three Choirs Festival, originating in the 18th century and one of the oldest music festivals in the British Isles, is held in Gloucester every third year, the other venues being Hereford and Worcester. Gloucester hosted the festival in 2016, and it is next due in the city in 2019. The city's main theatre and cultural venue is the Guildhall. The Guildhall hosts a huge
Worcester precursors of Hwicce and probably the West Saxons who entered the area some time after the 577 Battle of Dyrham. In 680, their fort at Worcester was chosen—in preference to both the much larger Gloucester and the royal court at Winchcombe—to be the seat of a new bishopric, suggesting there was already a well-established and powerful Christian community when the site fell into English hands. The oldest known church was , which was certainly British; the Saxon cathedral was dedicated to St Peter. Worcester appears frequently in the historic records prior to the Viking era, often with reference to the