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Local Information

The town of Berkeley can be found situated between the southern banks of the River Severn and the M5 motorway just inside of the Stroud District of Gloucestershire. Located at the mid-point between Gloucester and Bristol, this town is situated atop the small hill in the Vale of Berkeley. Most noteworthy about the town of Berkeley is the Berkeley Castle which was where Edward II was imprisoned and then murdered.

Edward Jenner, who was the inventor of the vaccination, was born in the town of Berkeley. After studying medicine at London, Edward returned to Berkeley to work as the local doctor. Then through studying and finally experimenting when Dr. Jenner inoculated his gardener’s child with the cowpox, he proved that the inoculation was able to prevent the infection of smallpox in the child. You can visit this place in Berkeley because the location which was originally known as the Chantry, and was Jenner’s home for 38 years has since been turned into the Edward Jenner Museum.

The town is also noted as the first location for nuclear power in England and still has two nuclear reactors just outside of the town. It was the very first commercial nuclear power station in all of Britain, however they have both been decommissioned since then and are now encased fully in concrete. However at the administrative center for the power station, one can now find the Berkeley Nuclear Laboratories which were founded back in the 1960s and continue today to provide research for the CEGB.

To the north of the town of Berkeley one can find the port of Sharpness which is considered to be one of the most inland ports in all of Britain. Both the Gloucester and the Sharpness canals start at this point. However, originally the Sharpness Canal was known as the Berkeley Canal and while it used to be crossed by the Severn Railway Bridge, the bridge was damaged back in 1960 and deemed beyond repair.

There are plenty of things to see and do in Berkeley especially if you are looking for a bit of history in today’s nuclear technologies.