Cirencester and Gloucester, Monday 24th-Wednesday 26th June: Whitefield always pursued a punishing schedule. He took the stagecoach to Gloucester at eleven at night and reached Cirencester by ten the next evening. On Wednesday he asked the minister of the Parish Church for the use of his pulpit, but was refused because he did not have his letters of orders. He went to the public service at eleven, and at midday preached to a crowd of about three thousand in the open-air, in a field near the town. By four in the afternoon he was on the coach to Gloucester where he arrived at about seven.
Cirencester and Abingdon, Tuesday 17th July - Wednesday 18th: On this occasion Whitefield arrived in Cirencester at about six in the evening. Once more his reception was mixed: "men breathed out threatenings against me, but were not empowered to put them into execution." Crowds came to hear him from neighbouring towns and his congregation was twice the size of the last time he preached here.
God enabled me, weak as I was, to speak boldly as I ought to speak. Every thing was carried on with decency and order, and my inward comforts began to return again. God will not always be chiding, neither keepeth he his anger for ever....
The next day, the Wednesday, he preached at seven in the morning to a congregation of about the same number but with much greater spirits than the night before. This was the occasion that he preached in the Amphitheatre:
The place where I preached was exceedingly convenient. I stood in the valley, and the people on an ascent that formed a most beautiful amphitheatre. After I had done, God gave me some most extraordinary instances of the power of his word. Lord, not unto me, but unto thy name be all the glory.
Whitefield's Tump
A landmark in the local area which recalls Whitefield's travels in Gloucestershire is the Neolithic longbarrow on Minchinhampton Common known as "Whitefield's Tump" . It was from this mound on Sunday July 1st 1742(?) that Whitefield preached to a crowd of twenty-thousand. On 15th July he reports further success at "Hampton-common": "I was enabled to lift up my voice like a trumpet, and to preach to about twenty thousand souls". Among the congregation was Thomas Adams, who later gave the land to build the Rodborough Tabernacle.
Article from Stroud Local History Society on Whitefield's "great crusade in Stroud".
See also: George Whitefield in Gloucestershire (Banner of Truth)
I can't work out which year we are in: from Whitefield's journal, 1739. but other sources say 1742 - the days of the week are right for '42.