Author: Stuart Butler

Toll Houses and Turnpike Gates

Toll Houses and Turnpike Gates

There’s no rhyme or reason in my turnpike,

Toll house and mile post investigations,

I just walk or ride out on a whim,

But recording rather than re-imagining the past,

Just like a true old school antiquarian –

Armed with my 1967 pamphlet:

Turnpike Houses of the Stroud District.

Cox, C

Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society,

Volume 86, 1967,

Plus maps, notepad, pencils, I-phone and I-pad.

Rodborough was first and easy:

  1. The red brick Pike House by the Prince Albert at the top of Walkley Hill;

At the cross-roads as you’d expect; the adjacent, stone cottage was once the toll house –

‘Miss Pacey … had once been told by a former old inhabitant of Rodborough that the gate was fixed to the wall of the cottage.’ SO 846045

  1. Then along to Butterow SO 856040 – ‘same neo-Gothic style’ as Cainscross, ‘with typical 3-sided front’; ‘It stands where the 1825 road crosses the older hillside track from Rodborough to Bagpath’; it was a sweetshop and tobacconist in 1967; ‘Mr Holbrow of Watledge told the writer that his wife’s grandmother, whose family kept the pike, could remember when young seeing the legs of a man hanged on the gallows dangling out of the cart on the way down the hill.’
  2. The next one was easy as it’s on my way to work – if you cross directly from the Clothier’s Arms to the cobbled lane that leads down to Lodgemore, glance at the building on your left, directly opposite the pub. This was a corner shop when we moved here in the mid-1980s, but there was once ‘The Anchor Gate’ SO 844049 here, commanding the Bath Road and the canal.
  3. A walk over the canal leads you up to the Cainscross Road; cross at the pelican to reach the junction of Beard’s Lane and Cainscross Road: the site of ‘Prospect Place’ SO 841052; ‘Until recently a one-storey small toll-house stood at the junction of Beard’s Lane with the Cainscross Road, opposite Murder Lane. At present the site is only shown by a tarmac patch just outside the start of Beard’s Lane. The site was much resented in the 19th’
  4. Little Mill, Stroud, SO 854055: ‘At the far end of Park Gardens, Slad Road, is a private track, on the north side of which stood the toll-house.’
  5. Bowbridge needed a bike ride SO 858804 – ‘A toll-house stood at the NE corner of the crossing of Bowbridge Lane and the New London Road. The original route from Stroud to Chalford was up Nelson Street, along Lower Street and down Bowbridge Lane to near the canal bridge, where it turned left up what is now the “road to Gunhouse”, for the hill-side route to Chalford. This older track was cut across by the building of the new Stroud – Chalford turnpike road, and a few years ago the remaining buildings of the Bowbridge “loop” were demolished, and the old road is now blocked off.’
  6. Next up: Stroud Hill SO 869052 at the junction of Bisley Road and Bisley Old Road – ‘The spot is still known as The Pike. It may not have been long in use, but some of the stones at the base of the wall of the small enclosure are probably the remains of the house.’
  7. Burnt Ash 886012: ‘This is at the corner of the junction of the road from Tetbury and Avening with the Cirencester-Minchinhampton road, opposite the Ragged Cot. The former cottages have gone …’
  8. Hyde Gate, Minchinhampton SO 858012: ‘Just down the turning to Hyde and Chalford, near The Ragged Cot, … is a stone cottage … Across the road were said to be the shattered remains of the former gate post in the hedge, but the writer was unable to verify.’
  9. Near Forwood, Minchinhampton, 869005: An 1801 Act allowed the alteration of “the road from Nailsworth via Howcombe Hill and Iron Mill Hill up Well Hill” passing “Forwood and Trap End Gate to the West End of Minchinhampton”. ‘A cottage stands on the likely spot, at the junction of roads below Well Hill, but doeas not resemble a toll-house in position or appearance … it has not yet been investigated.’
  10. Woefuldane SO 879003: ‘The site is a long, narrow close between Hollybush Farm and Woefuldane Bottom, on the road from Hampton Fields to Minchinhampton. It is now covered by rough grass, below the level of the field behind, and is marked by a tree, though the actual house site (which was roughly in the centre of the close) has not yet been located.’
  11. Then down to the junction of Stratford Road and Wick Street – ‘Road widening has now quite obliterated the site of Stroud’s first toll-house’ (c.1734). SO 858056
  12. Salmon Springs at SO 847060 once had a toll-house: ‘This stood opposite the track to Callowell, the site being now obliterated by the brick building of the brewery.’
  13. Paganhill is handy for work SO 837056: ‘The toll-house stood at the junction of the Stroud-Paganhill-Cainscross road with roads to Whiteshill and Puckshole, opposite Paganhill Lane. This is the original road to Stroud from the west, replaced by the present Cainscross Road.’
  14. Cainscross SO 835049 is handy, if I want to walk that way home after work. This is how it was described in 1967: ‘The crenallations over the front bay have gone, the charges board has gone … the bay itself is now part of a barber’s shop, while the garden of course is no more … the smithy and cottages across the Dudbridge road have already been demolished, and the milestone temporarily removed. It is to be hoped that this interesting early neo-Gothic toll-house will not have to be destroyed… There was a riot here in 1734 (“on Sunday night, the 19th June 1734, whilst in a house situate near the turnpike at Cainscross, a tumultuous company of disguised people sounding a horn, and playing a fiddle, and armed with firearms and other weapons, came up to the turnpikes and commenced hewing with axes; and when deponent [William Bennet, innholder] looked out about two hours after, he saw that the turnpikes were utterly demolished.”).
  15. Dudbridge is handy for shopping at Sainsbury’s SO 838044: This was one of the original toll-houses of the Nailsworth Turnpike … built about 1783 … its site would seem to be covered by the Midland Railway embankment.’
  16. Then up the hill: Selsley Hill SO 835042 ‘The site is about opposite the cricket ground where the slope slightly levels out. Dwellings have been built up the left hand side of the road, but the site is probably where a track enters the road by a gate.’
  17. Lightpill next at Kitenest Lane’s junction (SO 840038) with ‘the new Nailsworth road. The building was demolished only a few years ago … the typical functional shape.’
  18. The Lightpill again SO 840041:‘Cyprus Inn – ‘This is a doubtful site, the only evidence so far being on the 1st edition 1-inch map which marks T.P. here … There is no indication on the Tithe map of a pike-house, and it may be that the site was a temporary bar, using the inn, before the piking of The Anchor Gate near the Clothiers’ Arms.
  19. The Spout, Woodchester SO 843027; ‘The site is on the N.E. corner of the junction of the road from the Bear Inn with the main Nailsworth Road, opposite Hillgrove … frequently used for meetings of Trustees in the 1780s …’
  20. Woodchester Park Stile, Southfield Road, SO 841028: ‘Pike Cottage stands on the S.E. corner of the junction of Southfields Road’ and the road from Selsley down to the A46. ‘A small hatch-like window gives on to Southfield Road.’
  21. Inchbrook (by The Crown) 843008: ‘This was on the outside of the bend of the road by The Crown and was one of the original toll-houses on the Nailsworth Turnpike. A stream passes by the site … ‘
  22. Nailsworth Turnpike 851998: ‘This is a very difficult site to identify … the main entrance to Chamberlain’s Mill’ [?] ‘but it may previously have been at slightly different points … the first site was probably below the Mill; and the keeper, John Hyde, was attacked at least twice in the early years.’ Then in 1790, after those early years, there was a start on the “New Road from the Bridge at Nailsworth through Howcombe and the Well Hill to join the Tetbury Road in Minchinhampton Town” ‘and when this road was opened , the surveyor was to be “empowered to sell the Turnpike House in the possession of John Hyde at the foot of Nailsworth Hill and to build a turnpike house where the new and old roads divide and to erect a gate across the New Road adjoining the said house.” Road alterations have complicated the issue, the earlier road toward High Beech having been … to the left of and considerably lower than the present pitch … At present the writer must confess he cannot positively identify the site.’
  23. Nailsworth – junction of Horsley and Shortwood roads, SO 847993: ‘a rectangular cottage with no obvious functional features … The house does not now stand on the actual road corner, but it seems possible that the adjoining cottage was built between the toll-house and the Shortwood road; making this now a right-angle junction, where formerly there would have been room to turn.’
  24. Horsley Road 843985: ‘3-sided front … blocked-up recess … The toll-board recess is now blocked-up but the outline of its arch is still visible.’
  25. Tiltups End (Horsley – Tetbury road; now a track) 845973: Started in 1782, demolished in 1965 – ‘The plate of the adjacent milestone was found behind the house, and has now been replaced on its milestone, which, though broken, has now been built into the new road-side wall … Mr Kimsbrey of Tiltups End informed the writer that his grandmother was the last pike-keeper, and got 2s 6d a week” and lamp oil”. She had to board some of her family as the cottage was too small.’
  26. Hazel Cottage, Nailsworth, 852996: ‘this is the complement to … Avening Pike, and barred the NW end of the new valley road … Hazel Cottage is a villa replacing the earlier toll-house … and stood opposite the track leading up to the cricket ground. Known as Hazelwood Toll House.’
  27. Avening 881980: ‘The toll-house was originally a small cottage with an asymmetrical 3-sided front. To this other building has been added …’
  28. Culver Hill, near Amberley, 845015: ‘For some time a toll-house stood near Quarry Hilll close to Culver House … probably only of short duration … The site has not been positively identified, but would most probably have been at the junction of the road to St. Chloe, nearly opposite the lane to Culver House, where the common ends.’
  29. Balls Green 866995: ‘The site lies within the ground of existing cottage where a side-track from the left enters the Nailsworth-Minchinhampton road via the Iron Mills, at Balls Green … possibly of short duration.’
  30. Up the hill to Stancombe SO 897069: ‘At the junction of the old Stroud-Bisley road with the Cirencester-Bisley –Painswick route, now largely abandoned, along which Charles the First’s army is said to have marched from Tetbury to the siege of Gloucester in 1643’; ‘To the typical 3-fronted shape have been added a porch and a wing.’
  31. Holbrook Farm, Calfway, SO 906075: ‘Twin cottages stand on the right just before the turning to Througham … This cross-route, Bath to Cheltenham, would be of little more than local importance after the improvement of the Minchinhampton-Stroud road and new routes through the Slad valley and later through Painswick. One point of interest is the date 1742 on the stone gatepost opposite the cottages.’
  32. Pass The Camp SO 914092: ‘The toll-house stood on the left immediately before the first building of The Camp, and in Autumn 1965 the site was being covered by a new construction.’
  33. Then carry on to Fostons Ash SO 914114 Opposite the pub ‘is a long, narrow enclosure now occupied by conifer seedlings. The toll house stood at the north end of this close, about opposite the milestone, and just beyond the parish boundary, the parish stone still being in situ across the inner field wall.’
  34. Holloway, Bisley, SO 906054: ‘Three stone buildings stand in echelon at the road junction of Holloway. Here meet the roads from Bisley to Chalford, to Oakridge, the Holloway to Jaynes Lane, and also an old, now abandoned, track to Rookswood in the Holy Brook Valley. The actual toll house … was probably the most southerly of the three.’
  35. A bike rode to Painswick takes in quite a haul: Washwell SO 869101 – ‘Melrose Cottage, Cheltenham Road, Painswick, stands out at the junction with the main road of Pullens Road, opposite Lower Washwell Lane. It is a straight-faced stone cottage to which later additions have been made at the back. It was identified by the occupant, Mrs Leech, who said her older relatives referred to it as the Pike … the former road from Gloucester Street towards Clattergrove before the main Cheltenham Road was built, ran behind this house.’
  36. Then the Eagle Inn, Painswick Road, at the junction with Wragg Castle Lane SO 854084: A toll-house stood ‘in the corner of the grounds of the present residence.’
  37. Near The Culls, Wick Street, SO 850062: Wick Street used to be ‘the route from Stroud to Painswick and Gloucester … a track led to down to Salmon’s Mill shortly before The Culls. The old toll-house stood on the far side of this track, though not on the site of the present building along this stretch of road. It was probably not long in existence as a toll-house.’
  38. Butt Green, Painswick SO 867101: The toll-house ‘stood at what was the top end of Painswick (Gloucester Street) opposite the pound and just before the 6th milestone, from which it is now separated by a new road. There isd a shed with a hatch on the site, but from the appearance of the stones it does not seem likely that the actual building has survived even in the vestigial form of a wall.’
  39. On another day, bike out to Haywards Field/Ryeford Road junction SO 812047/813047 – A toll-house ‘stood where the road from King’s Stanley and Ryeford enters the main Stroud-Stonehouse road, and is now obliterated by road-widening.’ There was ‘An earlier site … however … The road alignments at the approaches to Stonehouse differed from the present ones before the building of the G.W. Railway … The earlier site was somewhat to the west of the later one.’
  40. Then on to Horsemarling, Stonehouse SO 806062 – ‘This appears to have been on the east side of the road, just north of the present terraced houses before the turning to Horsemarling Lane … the site has not been positively identified.’
  41. Canal Bridge, Frampton, 746085: Similar style as The Perryway – ‘They were probably specially designed, and in brick, of one storey only, with a central chimney stack, but lack any special feature as a toll-house.’
  42. The Perryway, the junction with Nastfield Lane 763071: Similar to Frampton Canal Bridge, ‘but with a double frontage … In August 1966 it was empty, awaiting demolition.’
  43. Frampton Green 750082 – There was originally a bar ‘at both ends of the Green … and … close to The Bell … probably the pike-keeper’s hut, by the western gate … likely that this was the toll site, but that when the Berkeley Canal was extended past Frampton, the more convenient site [Frampton Canal Bridge], at the junction of the Saul and Framilode road with the road to Fretherne and Arlingham was chosen instead.’
  44. Claypits Farm, Alkerton, 767058: ‘Now obliterated, the site was close to a field boundary just south-east of Claypits Farm.’
  45. Little Haresfield SO 803091: ‘A bus shelter now occupied the site, which is at the right-hand corner of this T-junction.’
  46. Pike Lock, Eastington, 784061: ’This stood on the north side of the canal, where the Stonehouse-Whitminster road was entered by the Alkerton road, at the canal bridge … it was demolished to make way for a canal lock-keeper’s house. The writer was told in 19164 that the toll-board had been removed when the building was demolished and stored in a shed – which got burnt down …’
  47. Whitminster Cross Roads 776080: ‘This site would appear to have been on the south-east corner of these cross-roads … one of the original three toll sites on the Severn to Stroud roads, these appearing as Stroud, Cains Cross and Wheatenhurst. Nothing is known to the writer of its appearance or when it ceased to exist.’
  48. Horsepools Hill 841108: ‘This L-shaped building on the left about half-way down Horsepools Hill is known locally as Pike Cottage, though it stands in an unlikely position on a not-inconsiderable slope … it would seem to have had only a short existence as an actual toll-house.’
  49. Frocester Court 788028: ‘The toll-house is joined to a larger, later house … the southern of the two is obviously the older.’
  50. Frocester Hill cottages 793019: ‘At the base of the hill, the earlier route turned up sharp left and zigzagged up to the Nympsfield road. The present alignment to the right was made in 1784 … On a level stretch of the older route is a cottage …it may … have been a toll-house before the one at the top of the old hill-road [Nympsfield Hill 795014] … was built. But the identification is very tentative.’
  51. Nympsfield Hill 795014: ‘opposite the entrance to Woodchester Park and the road to Nympsfield stands a low shed … Inspection of the interior however [indicates] a dwelling … seems to be the remains of the toll-house that stood here before the 1784 realignment was made up Frocester Hill … the road to Uley was not built until 1822.’
  52. Tinkley Farm 824002: ‘There is cartographical evidence of a toll-site here, but the writer has not yet come across evidence of this as a turnpike road, though clearly it must have been in some group. The actual building has gone, and various farm buildings occupy the presumed site.’
  53. Ragged Barn 822983: ‘This site … stands at the junction of the old Nympsfield Road with the newer alignment from Horsley.’
  54. Brockworth SO 891152: Just by Green Street – ‘An architectural palimpsest. The front of the toll-house, recognisable by the recess over the door projects forward from a larger stone cottage apparently built round and over the first building; the large stone quins of the earlier building were left. The remains of the frontage were extended upward by brick courses, and a brick building added on the other side to the stone cottage.’
  55. Walls Quarry, Brimscombe SO 866201: ‘This is a small square cottage to which is joined a later building, formerly a bakery – it stands at a track junction nearly opposite the entrance to Brimscombe Church, on one of the few level stretches up this steep hill.’
  56. The Bourne SO 876021/2: ‘Unfortunately no relics of either site now remain’; one toll-house stood ‘just south of the railway bridge, and is probably to be identified by the track running alongside the base of the embankment, which could be the original alignment of the Stroud-Chalford turnpike road … when the railway was built, the Chalford road was realigned higher up the slope, and a new toll-house would then be built where the newer entrance to the Toadsmoor Valley road joined the newer Chalford road.’
  57. Near Brimscombe Bridge SO 867025: ‘The only evidence seems to be on the 1819 map of Stroud. It was probably only a catch bar on the lane linking the old and new roads, between the milestone and Brimscombe Bridge.’
  58. Chalford Church SO 892025: ‘Some large stones on the corner by the stores opposite the canal bridge and the church may represent the site: there seem to be old quoins built into the wall. It is a possibility … that here … an earlier toll site existed on the other side of the canal before the railway was built.’
  59. Cowcombe Lane SO 907022: ‘At the top of Cowcombe Hill the road levels out and turns left, opposite the narrow lane leading to Aston Down. The toll-house site is just before the bend. The stone footings remain, about 12 feet square, in a walled close, the well down the slope now being covered in, but with the iron hands for the turning handle still extant.’
  60. Frampton Mansell SO 925018 Pike Lane: ‘two cottages on the south side of the road to Cirencester opposite Pike Lane. In 1963 an elderly occupant told the writer that when she first moved there about 40 years before, a letter arrived for a previous occupant, addressed to ‘Pike Cottage’,
  61. Longtree Cross Roads, Chavenage Green, 877960: ‘This cross-roads, close to the presumed Hundred meeting place, was formerly of greater importance, the eastward road being called London Road or London Lane … the westward … leading to Chavenage Green probably being the connecting link with the [Roman] route from the Severn crossing’; ‘The toll-house stood in a close by the north-western corner of the cross-roads, but the site is now a dump for road materials.’
  62. Tetbury 888935: ‘the first gate on the Tetbury-Avening-Minchinhampton road … demolished to widen the road’ in 1821.
  63. Latterwood, Tetbury, 808971 and 810977: ‘The earlier site lies on the west end of the road, some way before the fork in the Old Bath Road, right to Symons Hall, left t0 Ashel Barn and Tetbury’. The second site ‘presumably dating from the construction of the new Horsley Road, is at the junction of the Old Bath Road with the road to Horsley, the site is now a road materials dump, but a toll-house of typical 3-sided frontage stood there as late as the 1930s’.

 

 

 

‘This survey does not claim to be exhaustive. Some toll-gates mentioned in documents have not yet been identified’ – for example, ‘Rockness Hill near Horsley, Bowle Hill near Rodborough.’

Standing by some deserted country cross-roads,

Twilight gloom, the flight of a bat, the cry of an owl –

It’s hard to imagine that this was once an important thoroughfare,

An admired example of enlightenment modernity:

A turnpike road, improved by turnpike trust funds,

By labourers with barrow, pick and shovel,

By surveyors with rod and line, shouting instructions.

It’s hard to imagine that there was once a toll house here,

With lumbering carts led by teams of eight horses,

Coaches fleet of wheel and horn,

Passengers muffled against the rain and storm,

Farmers with flock and herd,

Travellers with tall tales of highwaymen,

Would-be rioters in barn, inn and beer house,

Itinerants criminalised by Vagrancy Acts,

Enclosure and toll-gates,

Sightseers following in the wake of King George,

On their way from the waters at Cheltenham,

To view the locks at Wallbridge,

The tunnel at Sapperton,

All stopping here to pay their dues at the turnpike gate.

But now, all there is,

Is a tell-tale quoin within a Cotswold stone wall,

A milepost,

A deserted crossroads,

The screech of a bat,

The cry of an owl,

And darkening Cotswold cumulus.

But if like Coleridge, Wordsworth and de Quincey,

You place your ear to the road,

You might just catch the sound of a far-off coach,

The reverberations heralding its advent:

‘You either see it, or you don’t’:

Si monumentum requiris, circumspice.

 

 

Chartism and Voting 1839-2024

(With thanks to Deborah Roberts for the memories above

from our tribute to the Chartist meeting at Selsley in 1839)

Getting the Right to Vote Wasn’t Easy

An Easy Guide to this History

 

In 1819, in Manchester, a perfectly legal peaceful meeting of over 60,000 women and men campaigning for the vote for working people was attacked by the military. Over 400 were wounded and 18 died: ‘The Peterloo Massacre’.

 

At that time, the aristocracy essentially controlled parliament: less than 10% of men had the vote. Then in 1832, middle class men gained the vote. This increased the electorate to about 20% of men. Working-class men and all women were still voteless. Many working-class people had campaigned hard for the vote and had helped the middle classes but were left excluded, disappointed and angry.

 

This disappointment helped lead to the movement known as Chartism. It was called that because it had a Charter (‘The People’s Charter’) with Six Points that would bring political rights to ordinary people.

 

The Six Points: 1. All adult males to have the vote rather than needing to own property to vote. 2. Ending the law that you had to own property to be an MP. 3. Make sure that industrial working-class towns and cities had the right number of MPs. 4. MPs to be paid so that it wouldn’t be a hobby of the rich and ordinary working-class people could afford to become MPs.5. Secret voting to stop bribery and intimidation by bosses and landlords etc. 6. Annual parliaments to ensure MPs and governments kept their promises.

 

The Chartists presented three petitions to parliament (1839, 1842, 1848) with millions of signatures in support: each one was rejected by a parliament setting its face against democracy. Indeed, Chartist leaders faced not only imprisonment but also transportation and execution. It needed courage to stand up for the right to vote and millions showed that courage. Let’s not let them down: this is our heritage!

 

Remember that! Please honour this memory by ensuring that you are registered to vote!

 

And also remember the mass-meeting of 5,000 people in support of the People’s Charter on Selsley Hill in 1839 (twenty years after ‘Peterloo’). Our local ancestors took a lot of risks on that day to show their support for the Six Points – so let’s remember that in Stroud and the Five Valleys and beyond by making sure we are registered to vote. They showed courage up there on Selsley Common. Let’s not let them down.

 

Now for a short quiz: 1. Which of the Six Points has not become law? 2. Can you find out when each of the other five became law? 3. When did all women over the age of 21 get the vote? 4. And men? 5. About what percentage of soldiers in the First World War did not have the vote? 6. When did people over the age of 18 get the vote? 7. What are your opinions on lowering the voting-age to 16?

 

Finally … Chartism was a movement of its time and focused on men … but not solely …

The following is from the hugely-popular Chartist newspaper, the Northern Star, from 1839:

‘Address of the Female Political Union of Newcastle-upon-Tyne

to their Fellow-countrywomen’
‘We have been told that the province of woman is her home, and that the field of politics should be left to men; this we deny … For years we have struggled to maintain our homes … greet our husbands after their fatiguing labours. Year after year have passed away, and even now our wishes have no prospect of being realised, our husbands are over wrought, our houses half furnished, our families ill-fed, and our children uneducated … We are a despised caste, our oppressors are not content with despising our feelings, but demand the control of our thoughts and wants!’

 

We remember the fallen at Remembrance-tide.

Let’s also remember the Chartists and register to vote at Election-tide.

 

If you want to find out more about Chartism nationally, you can visit https://radicalstroud.co.uk/the-5-ws-and-the-h-of-chartism/

 

If you want to find out more about the meeting on Selsley Common, you can visit https://radicalstroud.co.uk/we-put-on-our-best-blouses-aprons-and/

And also https://radicalstroud.co.uk/selsley-hill-august-2nd-2013-and-may/

 

A Repertoire of Opposition to Enclosure

A Repertoire of Opposition to Enclosure

The Northampton Mercury contained an ‘advertisement for a football match’ at the end of July 1765 to take place over two days, August 1st and 2nd: ‘This is to give notice to all Gentlemen, Gamesters and Well-Wishers to the cause now in Hand. That there will be a FOOT-BALL play in the Fields of Haddon … for a Prize of considerable value … All Gentlemen Players are desired to appear in any of the Public Houses in Haddon aforesaid each day between the hours of ten and twelve in the Forenoon, where they will be joyfully received and entertained.’

On Monday 4th August 1765, the Northampton Mercury reported thus:

‘We hear from West Haddon in this County, that on Thursday and Friday last a great Number of People being assembled there in order to play a Foot-Ball Match, soon after meeting formed themselves into a Tumultuous Mob, and pulled up and burnt the Fences designed for the Inclosure of that Field, and did other considerable Damage; many of whom are since taken up by a Party of General Mordaunt’s Dragoons sent from this Town.’

 

Football matches are just one example

Of a whole repertoire of opposition

To the supporters of enclosure:

Grumbling, counter-petitioning,

Refusal to cooperate with surveyors,

Tearing down hedges and fences,

Writing formal letters of opposition,

Leaving threatening letters of opposition,

Refusal to sign enclosure bills,

Refusal to sign sundry legal documents,

Stealing boundary markers,

Removing indicators of field boundaries,

Writing local landscape poems,

Expressing anger in public,

Expressing feelings of violation,

Ensuring those feelings were shared communally

And transmitted through the generations:

Here is an example – a full generation

After enclosure had hit this particular village:

‘To the Gentlemen of Ashill, Norfolk,

This is to inform you that you have by this time brought us under the heaviest burden and into the hardest Yoke we ever knowed; it is too hard for us to bear … You do as you like, you rob the poor of their Commons right, plough the grass up that God send to grow, that a poor man may feed a Cow, Pig, Horse, nor Ass; lay muck and stones in the road to prevent the grass growing. If a poor man is out of work and wants a day or two’s work you will give him 6d. per week … There is 5 or 6 of you have gotten the whole of the land in this parish in your own hands and you would wish to be rich and starve all the other part of the parish…’

And here’s John Clare:

‘Inclosure came and trampled on the grave

Of labours rights and left the poor a slave

And memorys pride ere want to wealth did bow

is both the shadow and the substance now …’

And John Clare again:

‘That good old fame the farmers earnd of yore

That made as equals not as slaves the poor

That good old fame did in two sparks expire

A shooting coxcomb and. hunting Squire

And their old mansions that was dignified

With things far better than the pomp of pride …

Where master son and serving man and clown

Without distinction daily sat them down …

These have all vanished like a dream of good …’

And the folklore passed through the generations:

‘The law locks up the man or woman

Who steals the goose from off the common

But leaves the greater villain loose

Who steals the common off the goose.’

And when we look at the opposition to enclosure,

And the repertoire of dissent,

We must remember that not only

Are the textual records incomplete

(You have to keep secrets, don’t you?),

But that the repertoire of dissent’s

Oral opposition within an oral culture

Is, of course, impossible to recapture:

The hatred, bitterness, sense of violation,

Feelings of robbery, jobbery, misery and theft,

The loss of gleaning rights and rights of estover,

The loss of pasture and right to roam:

All, of course, the intangible history

Of all those villagers and commoners

’Condemned to the enormous condescension of posterity’.

In conclusion, john Clare again:

The Lament of Swordy Well:

In Swordy Well a piece of land

That fell upon the town

Who worked me till I couldn’t stand

&crush me now Im down

There was a time my bit of ground

Made freeman of the slave

The ass no pindard dare to pound

When I his supper gave

The gypseys camp was not afraid

I made his dwelling free

Till vile enclosure came & made

A parish slave of me

Alas dependence thou’rt a brute

Want only understands

His feelings wither branch & root

That falls in parish hands

Addendum

What of letter writing & formality,

Using the goose and common trope?

A case study:

A letter sent to the Marquess of Anglesey:

‘Where is now the degree of virtue which can withstand interest? …

Should a poor man take one of Your sheep from the common, his life would be forfeited by law. But should You take the common from a hundred poor mens sheep, the law gives no redress. The poor man is liable to be hung from taking from You what would supply You with a meal & You would do nothing illegal by depriving him of his subsistence; nor is Your family supplied for a day by a subtraction which distresses his for life! … Yet the causers of crimes are more guilty than the perpetrators. What must be the inference of the poor? when they see those who should be their patterns defy morality for gain, especially when, if wealth could give contentment, they had enough wherewith to be satisfied.  And when the laws are not accessible to the injured poor and Government gives them no redress.’

The Marquis replied thus:

‘Excepting as the mere fact of the Inclosure, the forming of which no one has a right to contest, All your statements are without foundation & as your language is studiously Offensive I must decline any further communication with you.’

 

‘The law locks up the man or woman

Who steals the goose from off the common

But leaves the greater villain loose

Who steals the common off the goose.

  The law demands that we atone

When we take things we do not own

         But leaves the lords and ladies fine

        Who take things that are yours and mine.’

For anyone for whom John Clare is a new discovery:

https://radicalstroud.co.uk/john-clare-150th-anniversary-of-his/

and

https://radicalstroud.co.uk/john-clare-day-july-13/

 

A People’s History

 

A People’s Local History

I thought it would be a great thing to try and stimulate a collective writing of a People’s History: a textual tapestry of life, work and landscape around Stroud, the Five Valleys and the county in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries (and then eventually the 21st.)

 

How?

 

If you are interested in contributing, all I ask is that you might use your imagination and whatever historical knowledge you might have (might be family history) to write a few sentences or so about jobs, or work, or landscape, or industry, or farming, or the home and email me. You can, of course, write more if you wish.

 

We will then meld everything together into a sort of textual tapestry: a collective work: a People’s History.

 

Deadline for contributions: May 31st.

 

Here are 3 links that might help: First look at the inspiration for this idea at https://radicalstroud.co.uk/workshop-of-the-world/

 

Then a bit of relevant local history at https://radicalstroud.co.uk/an-a-to-z-of-the-jobs-of-those-transported-from-gloucestershire/

 

Then if you wanted to look at a quick guide for some ideas for writing: https://radicalstroud.co.uk/creative-writing-guide/

 

 

You can find my email address at https://radicalstroud.co.uk/about-us/

 

Give Thanks to the Book of Trespass

Give Thanks to the Book of Trespass

When you’re walking footloose and fancy-free

Along some seemingly ancient footpath,

Checking your progress on the OS map,

Senses working XTC overtime,

(Apophenia! You’re part of it all! Just look at the view!)

It’s hard to remember that this feeling

Is legal in only eight per cent

Of William Blake’s green and pleasant land.

We have been enclosed by enclosure.

That’s why our footpaths are so circumscribed:

These are not footpaths to high sky freedom,

But meanders into false consciousness

And beguiling illusions of liberty:

Pilgrims’ Progress to Herbert Marcuse’s

Conception of Repressive Tolerance,

And Robert Frost’s poem, ‘The Road Not Taken’.

We look ahead and become accustomed

To the hedges, fences, walls and barbed wire.

It all seems so normal and timeless.

We forget John Clare when near a hedgerow.

And we forget the western cowboy plains,

The industrialised warfare of the western front,

And the colonial subjugation

Symbolised by the silhouette

Of barbed wire stretching into the distance.

It was called No Man’s Land in the First World War.

That land between the lines of barbed wire.

For King and Country.

Well, eight per cent of it.

‘If you want the old battalion,

I know where they are, I know where they are, I know where they are,

If you want to find the old battalion, I know where they are,

They’re hanging on the old barbed wire,

I’ve seen ’em, I’ve seen ’em, hanging on the old barbed wire.

I’ve seen ’em, I’ve seen ’em, hanging on the old barbed wire.’

 

Written after reading The Book of Trespass by Nick Hayes – inspiring! Totally recommended.

 

Not Burke and Hare but Burke and Marx and Bathurst

Horatio, the Humble Wayfarer, musing to self:

‘On the assumption that when Cirencester Park was formed, the path connecting Bisley and Cirencester was closed by the Bathurst Estate, then I suppose we can define that as an example of enclosure.

But we now see another example of a form of enclosure with the charging of admission to Cirencester Park.

So, I suppose what we see here is a sort of

Enclosure of Enclosure.

But how, in God’s name, can you enclose

What has already been enclosed?’

 

 

Horatio, the Humble Wayfarer at the gates:

‘Enclosure of Enclosure

What is this?

Meta-enclosure?

Post-modernist self-referential enclosure?

A seemingly logical impossibility?

A contradiction?

A paradox?

An existential, epistemological, ontological impossibility?

Alice through the Looking Glass?’

 

Humble Gatekeeper:

‘No, mate. Not Alice. But Bathurst through the Looking Glass.

£4 please. Or a tenner if you’re a local and want a permit.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’

 

Horatio, the Humble Wayfarer:

‘What. You mean … The end of the Edmund Burke vision of the Tory paternalistic hierarchical society?

No more:

‘The rich man at his castle,

The poor man at his gate,

God made them high and lowly

And ordered their estate.’

Instead, you refer to dialectical materialism and Marxism?

And, by implication, a conflict of class?’

 

Humble Gatekeeper:

‘That’s right, mate.

Four quid please.

And I give you this ditty:

The rich are in their castle,

Admiring their estate,

No more frees on entry,

The poor pay at the gate.’

 

 

Walking the Wall

Walking the Wall from Walbridge to Brimscombe

In the early years of the twentieth century,

A jingoistic electoral cry appeared:

‘We want eight and we won’t wait!’

(The eight being dreadnoughts or battleships),

Well, we waited at Walbridge for a bit

And almost numbered eight before setting forth,

Not as battleships but as messengers of peace,

In an act of global solidarity:

‘Walking the Wall for Palestine’,

With a cold-wind call for Palestinian rights

And a snow-swept local contribution

To the demand for an end to Israel’s war on Gaza.

Our walk conjoined our local landscapes

With echoes of those of Palestine:

We stood beneath the railway viaduct,

Imagining the Separation Wall,

Eight metres high in places,

750 kilometres in length,

Cutting its way deep into the West Bank,

Preventing access to land,

Preventing freedom of movement:

The dystopia of concrete panels,

Electric fences, razor wire, watch towers …

The Apartheid Wall …

The Separation Barrier …

The Security Fence …

We then climbed up through a ghost orchard,

And through the palimpsests of allotments,

Hearing how the right to cultivate

In Palestine is oft times stolen

Through sleight of legal hand,

Legerdemain or worse

(Dissonance in the landscape);

Thence to Rodborough Fort,

Contrasting the memories of camping

For spacious recreation in the field over the wall,

With the imagining of overcrowding

In the refugee camps near Bethlehem …

Dissonance in the landscape …

We then stopped at the so-called Lonely Tree:

Conjoining the status of Rodborough Common

As a Site of Scientific Interest,

With the Israeli practice

Of defining some landscapes as nature reserves,

With consequent eviction of inhabitants

(Dissonance in the landscape) …

And as we stood high in the biting wind,

We caught Theresa’s words in the gusts:

‘Imagine every hilltop with a military or fenced community that starts off as one or two caravans … illegal settlement under international law … Israel provides military protection, settler-only roads, water and electricity …Flags fly from these houses. Palestinians nearby have lost the use of land, face harassment and interference in their daily lives. For example, theft of sheep and goats, worrying with dogs, destruction of wells, chopping down of olive groves etc.’

But we walked on to Winstone’s Ice Cream Factory:

No checkpoints for us or checking of papers,

As we reflected on the difficulties

Palestinians often face

When trying to run cafes and restaurants,

When trying to maintain family ownership

Through the generations and such length of time,

Unlike the ice cream parlour here at Winstone’s,

With its easy and lauded continuity …

Once more, a dissonance in the landscape.

We then made an aqueous descent

To the River Frome and the canal,

Running water everywhere around us,

While we listened to a discourse

Analysing and describing

The punitive inequality

Evidenced in the supply of water and

Its storage, distribution and usage …

I stood on the canal bridge and pondered …

So much of our discussion and peregrination

Had revolved around those fundamental

Half-mythologised four elements:

Fire air, earth and water …

And how on our walk we had enjoyed

The elemental magic of Rodborough Common’s skyscape:

As opposed to elemental appropriation

In far-off but now-conjoined Palestine.

It was a walk with echoes and dissonance:

A topography of limned discordance.

Saddened but wiser, I walked to the Long Table

For a communal bite to eat

And a sharing of thoughts and emotions.

I walked back to Stroud along the towpath,

Flag sodden, but still flying a message of hope.

 

This is by necessity a linear account. This account misses out so much as it pursues the linear path of our progress– the conversation about the hearts etched outside the subscription rooms … the woman who met us in the fields with such delight … the sharing of hearts and minds … the warmth of commonality and solidarity … the sense of purpose … I could go on and on … a memorable morning.

March 2nd 2024: Walbridge to the Long Table, Brimscombe.

 

Cirencester

‘For 326 years the public have enjoyed free access to Cirencester Park – one of the largest open green spaces in Gloucestershire.
On March 15th, that freedom will end.
The Bathurst Estate is introducing a paywall for access, with outsiders charged £4 to go for a walk.
Join Right to Roam for a peaceful jamboree on the weekend the charges are introduced, as we contest the paywalling of the park and celebrate hundreds of years of community heritage.
We’ll hear from locals, historians and Right to Roam campaigners and resurrect some of the park’s great customs in a ‘Fayre For All’.
(We won’t be paying)
Won’t we be trespassing?
Technically, yes. But really we’re just doing what we’ve always done: going for a peaceful wander in the park.
If you’re worried: peaceful trespass is a ‘civil’ offence and the chances of anything coming of it are low, especially when it’s conducted en masse.
What to Bring
Bring appropriate footwear for a soggy spring wander, warm clothes, something for lunch – and perhaps something to share!
You may wish to bring a ground sheet or blanket to sit on at various points.
Dogs
We ask you to leave doggo at home for this one.
Even when it was freely open the park only allowed dogs in certain areas and we’re not here to contest dog management policies! Our furry friends can also add complication when we’re here to make a wider point.
Children
Sure, this is intended to be a peaceful, family-friendly event. If they’re happy with a bit of walking and a few hours out in spring weather!’

Creative Writing Guide

A GUIDE TO WRITING YOUR OWN

If you fancy it, here’s a practical easy guide to creative writing.

(If any readers are into the intellectual side

of all this slipping through wormholes of time stuff,

and fancy some prompts about psychogeography,

Radical walking and the imagination –

an A to Z of Psychogeography

follows the creative writing guide.)

 

A guide to creative writing: An A – Z Writing Guide

A is for ALLITERATION and ANECDOTES

and ASSONANCE and ATMOSPHERE

B is for BATHOS and BLANK VERSE and BACKSTORY

C is for CHARACTERS and CLIFFHANGER and COUNTER-HERITAGE

D is for DIALOGUE and DRAMA

E is for EFFECT and ELLIPSIS

F is for FIRST PERSON and FORESHADOWING

and FACT and FICTION and FREE VERSE

G is for GENRE (which will you choose?)

and GUERRILLA MEMORIALISATION

H is for HONESTY and HEART (and soul) and HERITAGE

I is for IMAGERY and IDIOM and IAMBIC PENTAMETRE

and IMAGINATION

J is for JUSTICE and the JUST word

K is for KINDNESS and KINESIS

L is for LUCID and LUDIC and LIMINALITY

M is for METAPHOR and MOOD and MEMORIALISATION

and MYTHOPOEIC and METRE

N is for NARRATIVE and NOTEBOOK (necessary)

O is for ONOMATAPOEIA

P is for PERSONA and PLOT and PACE and PUNCTUATION

and PARENTHESIS and PEN and PENCIL

and PAPER and POETRY and PROSE

Q is for QUEST (for the right word) and QUESTIONS

R is for RULE OF THREE and RHETORICAL QUESTIONS

and RESEARCH and READING and RHYME and RHYTHM

S is for SIMILE and SIBILANCE and STRUCTURE

and STANZA and SETTING and SENSES and SENTENCES (varied)

and SYNTHESIA

T is for TRIPLES and THIRD PERSON

U is for UNDERSTATED

V is for VARIED SENTENCE STRUCTURE and VOICE

and VERSE and VARIED VOCABULARY

W is for WANDERING and WRITING and WORMHOLES

X is for X-ROADS (liminal wormholes through time)

Y is for YEARNING (for the past and for the right word)

Z is for ZEN and the ART of STATIONERY MAINTENANCE

An A-Z Psychogeographical Guide

A is for Ambulatory Art; the Arcades Project; Alienation; Ambience/Ambiance; Aleatory Walking; Ackroyd (Peter); the Association of Autonomous Astronauts; Autism and Walking; Ambling.

B is for Beach (Beneath the Pavements!!); Benjamin (Walter); Baudelaire; Bohemian; Barthes (Roland); Baudrillard Jean) and Bucolic.

C is for Commodity Fetishism; Crowds; Chtcheglov (Ivan); Coverley (Miles); Cartography (Re-imagined); Critique of Everyday Life; Commodification; Cultural Terrorism; Choreographed Walking; Cadogan (Garnette); Cyberflanerie; Crowds; constitutional.

D is for Derivee; Detournement; Debord (Guy); Defoe (Daniel); de Certeau (Michel); Disabled Walking; Dementia and Walking; Dreamtime Walking.

E is for Edgelands; Existentialism; Experimental Exeats; Egressions; Ecophilia.

F is for Flaneur; Flanerie; Flaneuse; Five Valleys; Fete (see Potlatch); Foucault (Michel) and Feminist Psychogeography; Field Walking.

G is for Geography.

H is for Hessel (Franz); Huizinga (Johan), Homo Ludens; Harvey (David); Hawksmoor (Nicholas); Home (Stewart); hollow-ways; hike.

I is for International Situationniste (the S.I. journal); Infraordinary; Interpellation; Indolence.

J is for Journals; Journeys; Jorn (Asger); jogging.

K is for Kaleidoscope; Kafkaesque.

L is for Ludic; Lefebevre (Henri); Lettrist International; Literary Communism; Ley Lines; the Loiterers’ Resistance Movement; Languid.

M is for Marxist-Materialists; Mythogeographers (discovering political and/or multiple meanings in landscapes; Maps (mmm …); Manifestos; May ’68; the Materialist Psychogeographical Affiliation; the Museum of Walking; Multicultural Inclusive Psychogeography ; Memory Retrieval through walking (dementia sufferers); POPS (Privately Owned Public Spaces).

N is for Noctivigant; Noctambulist; the Neoist Alliance; Navigation; Navigators (inland); Navvies.

O is for Occultist Walking (invoking de Quincey, and William Blake for a harder political edge.); Oldfield Ford (Laura); Ocularcentrism.

P is for Psychogeography; Potlatch (the S.I. journal) and Potlatch (devoid ‘of all Productive logic in which everyone may Participate’ – A Fete*); Performance (Poetic and subversive Potential of ordinary life revealed); Pranks and Property Defacement; Praxis; Papadimitriou (Nick); Postmodern Flaneur; Psychogeography and the Deriviste;

Q is for de Quincey (Thomas); Queues (bus stop).

R is for Rural (reading and writing the rural – individually/collectively); Romantic (literary tradition); Rhythmanalysis; Reverie; Richardson (Tina); Rimbaud; Relational (cf solitary) Walking and Recollection.

S is for Signifier; Signified; Semiotics; Situations; Spectacles; Situationist International; Society Of The Spectacle; Stroud; Site Specific (art/performance); Solnit (Rebecca); Subversion; Spatial Interruption (cf Temporal Interruption); Sinclair (Ian); Savage Messiah; Social Critique ; Schizocartography; Smith (Phil); the Situational Derive; Situational Walking Arts; Sensory Mapping; Soundscape and Smell Walks.

T is for Time; Temporality Interruption (cf Spatial Interruption);

Three Sided Football.

U is for Urban (reading and writing the city/town – individually/collectively); Unitary Urbanism; Utopianism.

V is for van Ratingen (Witold Jerzy) (see * Potlatch above); Virtual Psychogeography.

W is for Watkins (Alfred); Walking as ‘A Pedestrian Speech Act’ (de Certeau); Wrights and Sites and the Walking Artists Network and Walking Women and Walking While Black.

X is for Cross Roads and X marks the spot of whatever you wish to bury or find.

Y is for Yearning/Nostalgic walking.

Z is for Zen-Fullness; The Art of Zen and Shank’s Pony Maintenance.

 

 

An A to Z of the Jobs of those transported from Gloucestershire

An A to Z of People at Work in Gloucestershire

in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries:

The professions and jobs and sometimes status

Of those who were transported

When I look out of my window I descry

The following on their way to Van Diemen’s Land

and to New South Wales:

An accountant, an apothecary, an ash-carrier,

an attorney-at-law, and an awl-blade maker;

Followed by

A baker, a baker’s boy, a barber, a bargeman,

A basket-maker, a billy-spinner, a blacking-maker,

A blacksmith, a boatman, a boiler-maker, a brass-founder,

A brazier, a bricklayer, a brick-maker, a brush-maker,

A brush maker’s apprentice, a burler, and a butcher;

Next in line:

A cabinet-maker, a calf-dealer, a carpenter,

A carpet-weaver, a carrier, a carver, a chair-maker,

A chimney sweep, a clerk, a clock- and watch-maker,

A clock-cleaner, a cloth dresser, a cloth-factory man,

A clothier, a clothing-mill boy, a cloth-mill worker,

A cloth-rower, a cloth-worker, a coach-horse tender,

A coach-painter, a coach-plater, a coach-smith,

A coal miner, a collar-maker, a collier,

A colt-breaker, a comb-maker, a confectioner,

A cooper, a cordwainer, a cork-cutter,

A cotton-spinner, and a cutler;

Then this queue:

A dealer, a dealer in marine stores, a deserter,

 A donkey-driver, a draper, a dress-maker,

A drummer in the militia;

Succeeded by this procession:

An earthenware dealer, an East India Company member,

An edge-toolmaker, an engine-maker, an errand boy;

Then this column:

A farmer, a Fenceler (Royal Marines), a field blacksmith,

A file-cutter, a fireman, a fish- and bacon-carrier,

A fish- and orange-carrier, a fish-carrier, a fisherman,

A fishmonger, a flock-dresser, a fly-man,

A framework-knitter;

In the rear of those:

A gardener, a Gentleman, a gig-mill worker,

A glazier, a glover, a grocer, a groom, a gunsmith, a gypsy;

Then a sinuous line:

A hairdresser, a handle-setter, a harness-maker,

A hatter, a haulier, a hawker, a hawker of hardware,

A haggler, A horse-dealer, A horse-doctor,

A horse-keeper, A hurdle-maker;

Then in quick two step:

A japanner and a joiner;

Followed by this quintet:

Labourer, lace-factory worker, lawyer, leather-dresser, lemon-carrier;

And then a longer row:

A marine, a mason, a merchant, a merchant seaman,

A metal-smith, a militia-man, a milliner, a miller, a millman,

A millman and cloth rower, a millwright, a mole catcher,

A miner, a mortar-boy, a moulder in foundry, a musician;

Then a trio:

A nailer, a nail-maker, a navigator;

Then a singular

Oyster- and cider-seller;

Followed by this chain:

A painter, a paper-maker, a pargeter, a pensioner,

A pedlar, a pig-dealer, a pipe-maker, a plane-maker,

A plasterer, a plumber and glazier, a porter, a post-boy,

A potter, and a prostitute;

And a then this string:

A rag-gatherer, a razor-grinder, a recruit for the army,

A ribbon-weaver, a rifle corps member, a rope-maker,

A rope-spinner, and a rowling-slitter;

And then this motley:

A sack-weaver, a saddler, a sail-maker, a sailor,

A sawyer, a scamp and bone picker, a scribbler, a seaman,

A servant, a shearer, a shearman, a shepherd, a shoe-binder, a shoe-maker, A shop-keeper, a silk-weaver, a slater and plasterer, a smith,

A smelter, a soap-boiler, a soldier, a spinner, a sprig-maker,

A stable boy, a stenciller, a stocking-maker, a stocking weaver,

A stock-worker, a stone-cutter, a stone mason,

A straw- and hay-dealer, a straw- bonnet maker, a surgeon, a sweep;

Then this cavalcade:

A tailor, a tailoress, a tailor’s apprentice, a tanner,

A tea-dealer’s clerk and traveller, a thatcher; a tile-maker,

A tinker, a tin-man, a tramp(er), a traveller, a traveller with an ass,

A traveller with fruit etc., a traveller with hardware,

A turner and filer, a twine-spinner;

Coming up the rear:

An upholsterer;

A volunteer for the army;

And finally:

A washerwoman, a waterman, a weaver,

A wheelwright, a whitesmith, a wire-drawer,

A wood-dealer, a wood-sawyer, a woolsorter.

This is, of course, not the number of people transported,

But a list of the professions and jobs

and sometimes status of those transported.

But it is a window on a lost world.