The New Inn on Northgate Street is misleadingly named — it dates from around 1455, making it one of the oldest and best-preserved galleried coaching inns in England. The building is arranged around a central courtyard with wooden galleries running along the upper floors, a design that allowed travellers arriving by coach to reach their rooms directly from the courtyard. The layout is still intact and essentially unchanged.
The inn was built by John Twyning, a monk from Gloucester Abbey, to house pilgrims visiting the tomb of Edward II in the Cathedral nearby. It later became an ordinary coaching inn and, famously, the place where Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed queen in 1553 — a proclamation that lasted nine days before Mary I took the throne.
The New Inn still operates as a pub and hotel. Even if you're not staying or eating there, the courtyard is accessible and worth seeing — it's the kind of medieval survival that Gloucester has in abundance but that gets overlooked by visitors focused on the Cathedral and Docks.