Stroud spreads out along its
five valleys like a starfish creeping up on the small towns on its periphery. To the east
is Chalford and the Golden Valley. To the west is the light industrial sprawl of
Stonehouse. To the south is a long ribbon of centuries-old development running past
Woodchester to the town of Nailsworth. To the north is the beautiful small town of Painswick. The Cotswold Edge wraps around Stroud, and the valley
sides are so steep that local inhabitants become dizzy and disoriented on level ground,
and are advised to receive counselling before visiting Holland. There are superb views in
any direction so long as it is up or down or sideways.
The sides of the Stroud valleys, particularly the valleys running south to Nailsworth and east to Chalford, are covered with houses and cottages to be found in that part of Heaven reserved for saintly architects. Jesus said that in His Father's house there were many mansions, and that may explain why the archangel Gabriel can be seen tramping the back roads of Woodchester with an SLR camera and a notepad. In contrast, the valley bottoms are filled with mills which might once have been dark and satanic but which have now been largely converted to other uses ... such as Ebley Mill, which houses the town council and is the centre for the collection of local taxes ... on reflection, perhaps the devil still possesses the valley bottoms.
If the mills belonged to Satan, we should acknowledge the thought of D.H. Lawrence:
"Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell
But tell me, tell me, how do you know
He lost any of his brightness in the falling?"
They have an unexpected beauty, composed partly of location, partly of Cotswold stone,
and partly of the indigenous Cotswold architecture. The valley bottom from Nailsworth to
Stroud is filled with a string of these early industrial pearls. It was these woollen
mills that made Stroud. 
Stroudwater Scarlet
clothed the redcoats who fought rebellious American colonists; it clothed the redcoats of
Wellington's Peninsular Army when he pushed the French out of Spain, and it clothed them
when they finished off Napoleon at Waterloo. It clothed the little detachment of Welshmen
who fought off thousands of Zulu warriors at Rourke's Drift in Natal. There was a time
when Stroud Scarlet was the most famous colour in the world.
The mills began a catastrophic decline in the 1820s and 30s. There were too many mills crowded along the rivers and the owners played games with water to put rivals out of business. Too much money was borrowed, and there were bankruptcies. Quality suffered, and cloth remained unsold. Cottage weavers were so poor that they could not find decent clothing to attend church, and whole communities emigrated to Australia and the United States. Increased mechanisation reduced the need for people. Although cloth production has not suffered dramatically, the number of working mills has been reduced from over 200 to 5. The last water wheel stopped working in 1962.
The town of Stroud is seen at its best from the Cross, looking down the steeply-sloping High Street. The Cross once had a lock-up, stocks, and a pillory, but they have been replaced by wooden benches, and as they are only a few minutes from Joe's Chippy, it has become a family ritual for us to sit at the Cross and munch our way through a large portion of heavily salted chips drowned in malt vinegar. I have often wished the British weather allowed for more continental-style pavement cafes, but in their absence this is a very adequate substitute. I hope the archangel Gabriel has seen us there on his mansion-spotting visits and arranges for Joe's Chippy to be included in the celestial Woodchester.
At one point it was the custom to roll flaming tar barrels down the High Street from the Cross on November 5th. Given that the recommended method for descending the High Street is to abseil (paragliding is no longer permitted), this must have been a sight. Residents were so terrified that the custom was banned in 1824 and this caused serious rioting.
When one is abseiling down the High Street it is possible for the physically adroit to swing on the rope and grab the ledge on the right which leads into the Shambles. This is the site of the old meat market, where John Wesley preached standing on a butcher's block. Opposite is the late 16th.C town hall. The Shambles leads into the churchyard of St. Lawrence's, where there is a gravestone to Lieutenant Delmont, victim of the last fatal duel on British soil in 1807.
The participants were recruiting officers for the Napoleonic War. By accounts it was a botched affair; Delmont had an old, rusty pistol, and even if he had been able to persuade it to fire it would have been redundant - Heazle turned and shot him before the count finished. Poor Delmont must have had "loser" tattooed on his forehead by the Fates because a nurse gave him disinfectant to drink in error. Heazle made his escape to the West Indies. This was a mistake. Yellow fever ("Yellow Jack") was the bane of white men in the West Indies. In 1801 the French army of General Leclerc in Haiti was reduced from 25,000 to 3,000. Total losses to the British Army in the West Indies at this time are estimated at 40,000, exceeding the total of the entire Peninsular War against the French. Heazle died there.
Another tragi-comic story concerns the building of
the Subscription Rooms, a fine neo-classical building erected in 1833. It is one of the
landmarks in Stroud. A series of ramps were built to carry building materials onto the
roof. One dark night a very drunken farmer left the Swan Inn
and mistakenly rode his horse up the ramps to roof level. It is said that Stroud horses,
accustomed to climbing the High Street, have some of the agility of mountain goats; this
particular horse must have been inexperienced (or a foreign import) because it fell off
the scaffolding and died. Perhaps the farmer was testing his horse to see whether it was capable
of going home via the High Street. We will never know. The story is preserved in a
children's mural on the wall of a nearby building.
The illustration of a British Infantryman c.1815 was taken from the Osprey Men-at-Arms Series No.114.
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The High Street taken from the Cross. The thumbnail shows a sheep's head
and fleece, a reminder of Stroud's debt to the woollen industry. 
The Swan Inn, a 19th.C coaching inn. 
Joe's Chippy. The town council plotted to remove the "Jaws"
motif, but it is still there so it must be art. 
The School of Art built in the 1890s in a highly ornate late Victorian
style. The thumbnail shows a detail from the frieze, featuring Victorian worthies and the
Queen herself. Return to Contents
In most cases further information can be found under Things to See.
See also entries for Dursley, Painswick, Tetbury and Wotton under Edge.
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Folly Park Farm provides luxurious accomodation in the traditional 17th. century Cotswold farmhouse, and in self-catering cottages.
Chips: French fries, or les pommes frites, cooked as only the British cook them. These should be served in a greaseproof paper bag on a bed of succulent white wrapping paper. The gourmet will request hand-made, unbleached paper from the Wookey Paper Mill in Somerset. Chips should be heavily salted and drowned in so much malt vinegar that you smell like a pickle for days. You will take on the demeanor of St. Francis of Assisi as clouds of pigeons and seagulls claim to be your best friend, and passers-by will sniff reflexively when the odour of vinegar reaches them and feel an irrational and irresistable compulsion to rush off to a chip shop.
The British are very good at down-playing their native cuisine. Most local pubs will serve unbelievably delicious steak and kidney pies. These are things one can only dream about in a French restaurant.
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Copyright Digital Brilliance 1995