History

A MISCELLLANY OF HISTORY A TEXTUAL WEAVING OF A CABINET OF CURIOSITIES A TEXTUAL SAMPLER Chapter Four  A few short years after our walk along Stroud’s High Street in the previous chapter, William Cobbett made his way through Stroudwater, as recorded in Rural Rides: “From AVENING I came on through NAILSWORTH, WOODCHESTER, and RODBOROUGH, to this place. These villages lie on the sides of a narrow and deep valley, with a narrow stream of water running down the middle of it, and this stream turns the wheels of a great many mills and sets of machinery for the making of woollen-cloth. The factories begin at AVENING, and are scattered all the way down the valley. There are steam-engines as well as water-powers. The work and the trade is so flat, that, in, I should think, much more than a hundred acres of ground, which I have seen today, covered with rails, or racks, for the drying of cloth, I do not think that I have seen one single acre where the racks had cloth upon them. The workmen do not get half wages; great numbers are thrown on the parish; but … Here are a series of spots, every one of which a lover of landscapes would love to have painted. Even the buildings of the factories are not ugly … At present, indeed, this valley suffers; and, though cloth will always be wanted, there will yet be much suffering here, while at ULY and other places, they say that the suffering is great indeed.”   Now let us travel south in the county, courtesy of Trevor Simpson on one of his Bristol Rides, to Kingswood. Kingswood Miners ‘Coal mining is recorded as taking place in the...