Kings Walk Shopping Centre facts for kids
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| Location | Gloucester, England |
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| Coordinates | 51°51′53″N 2°14′42″W / 51.8646334°N 2.24505711°W |
| Address | 37-41 Clarence Street |
| Opening date | 1969 - 1972 |
| Developer | Gloucester City Council (Land), Aviva Investors (Shops) |
| Owner | Reef Estates |
| No. of stores and services | 29 |
| No. of floors | 1 |
| Parking | 290 spaces (16 Disabled spaces) |
Kings Walk Shopping Centre is a single-storey indoor shopping centre in Gloucester, England. It was built between 1969 and 1972. This centre is part of a larger area called the Kings Quarter, which also has outdoor walking areas.
A really cool secret is hidden under a trapdoor inside the centre. It's the Kings Walk Bastion. This is what's left of a 1,900-year-old Roman city wall and tower!
History of Kings Walk
Before it became a shopping centre, this area was known as Kings Street. It used to be a busy place with factories. For example, a factory for the printer John Bellows was built here in 1873.
Over time, more shops and businesses started to appear. Many buildings were rebuilt after the First World War, between the 1920s and 1930s. The northern part of Kings Street was taken down in the 1920s when Kings Square was created.
A big building project happened between 1927 and 1929. This created The Oxbode and expanded Kings Square. Many old buildings on St Aldate Street, Kings Street, and New Inn Lane were removed to make space for new commercial buildings.
Kings Square was made even bigger in the 1960s. This cleared the way for the Kings Walk Shopping Centre to be built. Between 1969 and 1972, a large project changed central Gloucester. Shops were built on both sides of Kings Street. The street was then covered over, becoming the indoor walking area we now know as Kings Walk.
An old stone building called Eastgate House was taken down when the shopping centre was built. A car park was also added on the roof of the shopping centre. There used to be a walking bridge on the second floor. It connected Kings Walk to the Eastgate Shopping Centre across Eastgate Street, but this bridge is now closed.
In June 2016, a company called Vixcroft tried to buy the shopping centre. They offered £25 million to Aviva Investors, who had owned the centre since 1969. However, the deal didn't happen because of a rule related to Brexit. In July 2017, another company, Reef Estates, successfully bought the shopping centre from Aviva Investments.
In March 2018, it was announced that £12 million would be spent to update the shopping centre. This included giving the outside a new look and changing the shop fronts in Kings Square and on Eastgate Street. This work was planned to be finished by 2020.
Kings Walk Bastion: A Roman Secret
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The Kings Walk Bastion is a very old part of a Roman city wall and tower. It's about 1,900 years old and is found under a trapdoor in the Kings Walk Shopping Centre.
The oldest part of this bastion is believed to be from a Roman fortress built around 60 AD. Originally, this fortress had a rampart (a defensive bank of earth) made of sand and clay, along with a wooden tower and a defensive ditch.
At the end of the first century, the fortress was no longer used. A new city was then built, meant to be a Roman Colonia (a Roman settlement for retired soldiers). Stone parts of the bastion were added in the 3rd and 4th centuries. These parts were made from Cotswold limestone. This stone wall was about five metres high and three metres wide. It was part of the large wall that surrounded the entire city back then.
The sections of the wall from the fourth century have huge stone blocks. You can see small rectangular holes on the inside where scaffolding would have been placed during construction. Later, in the thirteenth century, a semi-circular tower was added to the outside of the wall.
Archaeologists started looking into Kings Square in 1934. They found the corner of a Roman city wall and parts of a medieval tower about 2 to 3 metres underground. The area under Kings Street and Kings Square was fully dug up by archaeologists in May and June 1969. This happened before the big redevelopment of Kings Street.
In 1975, the site was opened for people to visit. However, it had to close in the mid-1990s because of flooding underground. In 2016, the Gloucester City Council fixed the electricity, put in a pump, and added new lighting. Then, on September 8, 2016, the site was reopened to the public. It is also thought that the remains of a Postern Gate (a secret back gate) might be under Kings Walk too, but its exact spot is still unknown.
