Author: Stuart Butler

WALKING THE THAMES TO LONDON #4

Raising Funds for the Trussell Trust

In association with the cyclists’ group from The Prince Albert

Day Two: Cricklade to Lechlade 11 miles

William Cobbett visited Cricklade in 1826 on his Rural Rides: ‘the source of the river Isis … the first branch of the Thames. They call it the “Old Thames” and I rode through it here, it not being above four or five yards wide, and not deeper than the knees of my horse … I saw in one single farm-yard here more food than enough for four times the inhabitants of the parish … the poor creatures that raise the wheat and the barley and cheese and the mutton and the beef are living upon potatoes …’
Plus ca change …

A haiku exploration:
Ridge and furrow fields,
Once beyond the river’s reach,
Now puddled and drowned.

Peasants till the fields,
Barefoot ghosts and revenants
Follow in our steps.

Silhouetted trees,
Pewter sky and silver clouds,
The water’s canvas.

Swans glide the field-flood,
A limitless lake’s expanse,
Burnished willow boughs.

And at Inglesham,
A medieval village,
Lost to Time’s waters.

Raising Funds for the Trussell Trust

In association with the cyclists’ group from The Prince Albert

Day Two: Cricklade to Lechlade 11 miles

William Cobbett visited Cricklade in 1826 on his Rural Rides: ‘the source of the river Isis … the first branch of the Thames. They call it the “Old Thames” and I rode through it here, it not being above four or five yards wide, and not deeper than the knees of my horse … I saw in one single farm-yard here more food than enough for four times the inhabitants of the parish … the poor creatures that raise the wheat and the barley and cheese and the mutton and the beef are living upon potatoes …’
Plus ca change …

A haiku exploration:
Ridge and furrow fields,
Once beyond the river’s reach,
Now puddled and drowned.

Peasants till the fields,
Barefoot ghosts and revenants
Follow in our steps.

Silhouetted trees,
Pewter sky and silver clouds,
The water’s canvas.

Swans glide the field-flood,
A limitless lake’s expanse,
Burnished willow boughs.

And at Inglesham,
A medieval village,
Lost to Time’s waters.

While we ooze and splash
Through rising water tables,
To a drowned future.

Postscript from Kel Portman

walking through water
in winter’s delicate light
so many more clouds

From field to wetland
Submerged ridge and furrow fields
Only geese rejoice

Newbuilds encroaching
On ox-ploughed ridge and furrow
Built on old floodplains

Connecting pathways
Link old fields and new town
Concrete covers soil

Hungry water floods,
Transforming land into lake.
Soil becomes mirror

Across old-ridged fields
Footpaths lead dogwalkers home
To flood-prone newbuilds
New rugby pitches

All fresh-white-lines and mown grass.

Lost, the ancient fields

Two new waterscapes
Made by this flooded river
Which of them is real?

Trees stand in water,
Surrounded, up to their waists.
Waiting for summer

Threat’ning Iron grey skies
Bring more rain to fill the Thames.
Filling forlorn fields

Lechlade where time and paths confluence
At the young wander of Thames.
Neolithic cursus monuments
ghost lines hinted in the plough soil,
the spectral signs of people here four thousand years before.
Always people returned
to Lechlade’s river land
where ways went from oolitic Cotswold upland
or towards chalk hills over claggy bottom vale.
All took the Thames track where fish tremble like strange sonnets
to seek further: teased by the twists of Thames.
There is much promised here for a life of ample gains,
Yet why halt now with paths and ways leading on?
Thames is a coming and going,
Lechlade wavers beside its bank.
Perhaps Britain is not an island,
but hundreds of flowing rivers carrying us all to the Sea.
Robin Treefellow

STATE OF HUNGER RESEARCH:
PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN
REFERRED TO A FOOD BANK
HAVE AN AVERAGE WEEKLY INCOME
AFTER HOUSING COSTS OF JUST £50

Rough Musick

ROUGH MUSICK
When we bang our pots and pans in the street,
When we clap our hands in harmony,
It’s not just an expression of sympathy,
Nor some sort of collective empathy,
It’s also the revival of ROUGH MUSICK.

ROUGH MUSICK:
A community PANDAEMONIUM
To indicate disapproval of rulers,
The wrong-doer often shown in effigy,
Sometimes riding the SKIMMINGTON,
As in The Mayor of Casterbridge,
Or the 1825 Stroud weavers’ riots,
As the world is turned upside down.

THE SKIMMINGTON
Perhaps we’ll see Dominic Cummings
In effigy, and Boris Johnson,
Placed backwards on a donkey in Chalford,
Or wheelbarrow or bike in Stroud,
As we all chant:
‘TEST
TEST
TEST
PPE
KEEP KEY WORKERS
VIRUS-FREE.’

ROUGH MUSICK
When we bang our pots and pans in the street,
When we clap our hands in harmony,
It’s not just an expression of sympathy,
Nor some sort of collective empathy,
It’s also the revival of ROUGH MUSICK.

ROUGH MUSICK:
A community PANDAEMONIUM
To indicate disapproval of rulers,
The wrong-doer often shown in effigy,
Sometimes riding the SKIMMINGTON,
As in The Mayor of Casterbridge,
Or the 1825 Stroud weavers’ riots,
As the world is turned upside down.

THE SKIMMINGTON
Perhaps we’ll see Dominic Cummings
In effigy, and Boris Johnson,
Placed backwards on a donkey in Chalford,
Or wheelbarrow or bike in Stroud,
As we all chant:
‘TEST
TEST
TEST
PPE
KEEP KEY WORKERS
VIRUS-FREE.’

Walking The Thames To London #3

WALKING THE THAMES TO LONDON #3
Raising Funds for the Trussell Trust
In association with the cyclists’ group from The Prince Albert

And on Thursday 6th February, I started the first day
On my Thames Path Food Bank Pilgrimage:
Day One Thursday 6th February 2020 Source to Cricklade

Frost, fog, mist, sunshine, sunrise 7.31; sunset 16.57; carbon count 413.90; remembering the remarkable Allen Davenport of Ewen, one mile on from the source of the river; swans, herons, twitcher all in camouflage secreted behind a tree, ridge and furrow, flooded water meadows, meandering broken banked Thames, wading waist-deep on one occasion; 13 miles. Cricklade 3pm.

Remembering Allen Davenport of Ewen:

One of ten children in a handloom weaver’s cottage: ‘I was born May 1st, 1775, in the small and obscure village of Ewen … somewhat more than a mile from the source of the Thames, on the banks of which stream stands the cottage in which I was born … I came into existence, while the revolutionary war of America was raging …’

He taught himself to read by learning songs; then saving up to buy printed versions. He taught himself to write: ‘I got hold of a written alphabet … I tried my hand at black and white … and to my inexpressible joy I soon discovered that my writing could be read and partially understood’.

WALKING THE THAMES TO LONDON #3
Raising Funds for the Trussell Trust
In association with the cyclists’ group from The Prince Albert

And on Thursday 6th February, I started the first day
On my Thames Path Food Bank Pilgrimage:
Day One Thursday 6th February 2020 Source to Cricklade

Frost, fog, mist, sunshine, sunrise 7.31; sunset 16.57; carbon count 413.90; remembering the remarkable Allen Davenport of Ewen, one mile on from the source of the river; swans, herons, twitcher all in camouflage secreted behind a tree, ridge and furrow, flooded water meadows, meandering broken banked Thames, wading waist-deep on one occasion; 13 miles. Cricklade 3pm.

Remembering Allen Davenport of Ewen:

One of ten children in a handloom weaver’s cottage: ‘I was born May 1st, 1775, in the small and obscure village of Ewen … somewhat more than a mile from the source of the Thames, on the banks of which stream stands the cottage in which I was born … I came into existence, while the revolutionary war of America was raging …’

He taught himself to read by learning songs; then saving up to buy printed versions. He taught himself to write: ‘I got hold of a written alphabet … I tried my hand at black and white … and to my inexpressible joy I soon discovered that my writing could be read and partially understood’.

When he moved to London, he read the works of the agrarian communist, Thomas Spence, and helped spread his revolutionary, republican slogans with chalk on pavements and walls.

‘SPENCE’S PLAN: THE PEOPLE’S FARM’
‘SPENCE’S PLAN AND FULL BELLIES’

‘THE LAND IS THE PEOPLE’S FARM’
‘If rents I once consent to pay
My Liberty is past away.’
Allen Davenport became an influential metropolitan and national leader across various working-class movements for some thirty years, from Peterloo to Chartism. An activist and political poet, remembered on the Reformers’ Memorial in Kensal Green.
Not bad for a handloom weaver’s child born one mile from the source of the Thames.
But what would he have made of food banks?
He couldn’t have imagined that such a thing
would exist nearly two hundred years after his death.
He would weep.
Is this progress?
When inequalities seemingly outstrip those of the Regency and Victorian era.

THE PEOPLE
VULNERABLE TO COVID-19
APART FROM THE ELDERLY
AND THOSE WITH HEALTH PROBLEMS
1.2 MILLION USERS OF FOOD BANKS
1.3 MILLION DESTITUTE
320,000 HOMELESS

OVER HALF THE PEOPLE
DEFINED AS BEING IN POVERTY
LIVE IN WORKING HOUSEHOLDS

AT LEAST 69 SUICIDES
IN THE PAST YEAR
LINKED TO UNIVERSAL CREDIT
UNIVERSAL CRUELTY

NEARLY 75% OF KIDS
LIVING IN POVERTY
LIVE IN HOUSEHOLDS IN WORK

Virtual Walking

KEEP FIT WHEN SELF-ISOLATING by pretending to walk the Thames to London. Join me for a virtual walk and measure your steps inside your house. As many of you know, I have been walking the river piecemeal towards London to raise funds for the Trussell Trust and food banks. I’ve got as far as Wallingford in reality and have now walked to Tilehurst in a pretend way. Join me if you wish and I’ll let you know what you’ve seen along the river banks. The next stage is from Cholsey to Tilehurst which is about twelve miles.

It may be that you might want to send me a sentence or two about your ‘walk’ in exchange, as we build up a journal of this new plague year. The first two posts about walking from Stroud are up here – please see below.

I have reached the conclusion that individual, family and public health considerations mean that I will now walk the Thames in a virtual/pretend way.

How will I do this?

By laying out the route-map for the day and by measuring the required distance on my phone. I will walk within my home and within my immediate locality, but far from the madding crowd: 19 corvids rather COVID-19, as it were.

By using imagination and memory rather than observation. By following my usual practice of blending reflections on topographical, historical, and contemporary contexts, with the Trussell Trust and food banks always in focus.

By all virtual means, please join me.

KEEP FIT WHEN SELF-ISOLATING by pretending to walk the Thames to London. Join me for a virtual walk and measure your steps inside your house. As many of you know, I have been walking the river piecemeal towards London to raise funds for the Trussell Trust and food banks. I’ve got as far as Wallingford in reality and have now walked to Tilehurst in a pretend way. Join me if you wish and I’ll let you know what you’ve seen along the river banks. The next stage is from Cholsey to Tilehurst which is about twelve miles.

It may be that you might want to send me a sentence or two about your ‘walk’ in exchange, as we build up a journal of this new plague year. The first two posts about walking from Stroud are up here – please see below.

I have reached the conclusion that individual, family and public health considerations mean that I will now walk the Thames in a virtual/pretend way.

How will I do this?

By laying out the route-map for the day and by measuring the required distance on my phone. I will walk within my home and within my immediate locality, but far from the madding crowd: 19 corvids rather COVID-19, as it were.

By using imagination and memory rather than observation. By following my usual practice of blending reflections on topographical, historical, and contemporary contexts, with the Trussell Trust and food banks always in focus.

By all virtual means, please join me.

WALKING THE THAMES TO LONDON #2

Raising Funds for the Trussell Trust
In association with the cyclists’ group from The Prince Albert

So here I am walking from Walbridge in Stroud,
Along the Thames and Severn Canal,
To Trewsbury Mead and the source of the Thames,
The prologue to my pilgrimage
To the Celestial City.

Prologue: Wednesday, 5th February 2020 Stroud to Source

It’s a great walk down to Capel’s Mill from my house,
Past old ridge and furrow and tenterhook hedgerows,
Teazles here and there to raise your nap,
Imagining the patchwork quilt of fields of two centuries ago:
You pass an old oak sentinel to reach the River Frome,
Railway viaduct and canal-bridge close at hand,
And there is the dell that once was Capel’s Mill:
Trees clambering down the steep riverbank to shroud the waters,
The remains of the mill sluice quickening the river’s pulse,
Rusting iron work still visible,
The steady drip down from the railway arches,

The echo of the 1839 Miles Report:

The weavers are much distressed; they are wretchedly off in bedding; has seen many cases where the man and his wife and as many as 7 children have slept on straw, laid on the floor with only a torn quilt to cover them … children crying for food, and the parents having no money in the house, or work to obtain any; he has frequently given them money out of his own pocket to provide them with a breakfast …These men have a great dread of going to the Poor Houses, and live in constant hope that every day will bring them some work; witness has frequently told them they would be better in the (work)house, and their answer has been, ‘I would sooner starve.’

Raising Funds for the Trussell Trust
In association with the cyclists’ group from The Prince Albert

So here I am walking from Walbridge in Stroud,
Along the Thames and Severn Canal,
To Trewsbury Mead and the source of the Thames,
The prologue to my pilgrimage
To the Celestial City.

Prologue: Wednesday, 5th February 2020 Stroud to Source

It’s a great walk down to Capel’s Mill from my house,
Past old ridge and furrow and tenterhook hedgerows,
Teazles here and there to raise your nap,
Imagining the patchwork quilt of fields of two centuries ago:
You pass an old oak sentinel to reach the River Frome,
Railway viaduct and canal-bridge close at hand,
And there is the dell that once was Capel’s Mill:
Trees clambering down the steep riverbank to shroud the waters,
The remains of the mill sluice quickening the river’s pulse,
Rusting iron work still visible,
The steady drip down from the railway arches,

The echo of the 1839 Miles Report:

The weavers are much distressed; they are wretchedly off in bedding; has seen many cases where the man and his wife and as many as 7 children have slept on straw, laid on the floor with only a torn quilt to cover them … children crying for food, and the parents having no money in the house, or work to obtain any; he has frequently given them money out of his own pocket to provide them with a breakfast …These men have a great dread of going to the Poor Houses, and live in constant hope that every day will bring them some work; witness has frequently told them they would be better in the (work)house, and their answer has been, ‘I would sooner starve.’

Watery sunshine, blue skies, bit of cumulus later on; 5 degrees initially; sunrise 7.33, sunset 16.56; carbon count: 414.32, pre-industrial base: 280, safe level: 350; ‘LANDOWNERS WELCOME CAREFUL WALKERS’ (Is this what the Tories mean by their mantra, ‘Levelling Up’?); Source of the Thames 3pm. 13 miles.

THE COURTS HAVE RULED THE GOVERNMENT
DISCRIMINATED AGAINST THE DISABLED
WITH UNIVERSAL CREDIT

PEOPLE ARE TOO SCARED
TO SIGN UP FOR THE NEW
UNIVERSAL CREDIT SYSTEM
THE TORY MINISTER RESPONSIBLE
WILL QUINCE
BLAMES ‘SCAREMONGERING’
YOU COULDN’T MAKE IT UP
COULD YOU?

LANDOWNERS WELCOME
CAREFUL WALKERS
IS THIS WHAT THE TORIES MEAN
BY ‘LEVELLING UP’?

Terminalia Beating the Bounds of Rodborough

It was a pleasure and a privilege to have the company of Alison Fure of the Walking Artists’ Network join us on Sunday. Here’s a link to her insightful wordsmith weaving:

https://alisonfure.blogspot.com/2020/02/beating-bounds-at-rodborough.html

Bio

Alison Fure has spent 22 years working as an ecologist informing land managers of the wildlife interest on their holdings; she enjoys taking the public on wonderful walks from wildlife, wassails and more recently, Soundwalks. Please join her on John Clare’s walk from Epping to Northborough in July 2020. She writes nature blogs and chap books including Kingston’s Apple Story. https://sampsonlow.co/2017/05/26/kingstons-apple-story-alison-fure/

It was a pleasure and a privilege to have the company of Alison Fure of the Walking Artists’ Network join us on Sunday. Here’s a link to her insightful wordsmith weaving:

https://alisonfure.blogspot.com/2020/02/beating-bounds-at-rodborough.html

Bio

Alison Fure has spent 22 years working as an ecologist informing land managers of the wildlife interest on their holdings; she enjoys taking the public on wonderful walks from wildlife, wassails and more recently, Soundwalks. Please join her on John Clare’s walk from Epping to Northborough in July 2020. She writes nature blogs and chap books including Kingston’s Apple Story. https://sampsonlow.co/2017/05/26/kingstons-apple-story-alison-fure/

Here’s Alison’s website about the regeneration of her local estate, in Kingston on Thames, designed to let people know about the natural environment

https://www.walk-with-jane.com/birds-and-bats

It was fascinating to listen to Alison on the way she is transposing John Clare’s poems on enclosure into a modern context, such as ‘social apartheid’ in play areas and so on, on new estates, and all the horrendous privatisation of public space zeitgeist. We’re looking forward to walking with Alison either on her actual John Clare walk or as an echo down here in Gloucestershire.

WALKING THE THAMES TO LONDON #1

Raising Funds for the Trussell Trust
In association with the cyclists group from The Prince Albert

I’m walking the Thames to London,
Not in linear sequence:
Flooding prevents that –
But in an act of near nominative determinism,
I present the famous words of Thomas Rainsborough,
From down by the river bank at the Church of St Mary the Virgin,
From the Civil War Putney Debates of 1647:
‘For really I think that the poorest … that is in England
Hath a life to live, as the greatest …’
What would Mr Rainsborough make of the need
For food banks, four hundred years later?

I’m not a great one for sponsorship,
Tbh,
My mantra is ‘Parity not Charity’:
I’m rather more of a supporter of tax,
Not regressive taxes such as VAT,
Where everyone pays the same,
Irrespective of income,
But progressive taxes such as income tax,
So as to redistribute wealth from the rich;
Oh, and another thing about charity:
I dislike the virtue-signalling,
And Americanisation
Of our society, with chuggers in the street,
And the incessant rattling of tins,
And that apparently self-validating cry:
‘Charidee!’

I do give, however, in a random way:
Domestic appeals, national appeals, international appeals,
Beggars in the streets,
Big Issue (not a charity),
Food banks …
Even though it’s a piecemeal patchwork,
Random and uncoordinated:
A personification of charity itself, I suppose …

So here I am in February 2020,
In the year of our Lord of Paupers’ Burials,
In the year of our Lord of Bet Fred,
In the year of our Lord of Universal Credit,
In the year of our Lord of Universal Cruelty,
In the year of our Lord of the Five Week Wait,
Pragmatically doing my bit
For the Trussell Trust,
Which, I think, also feels ambivalent
About its work – as its website says:
‘94% of people at food banks
Are in destitution.
This isn’t right.’

‘Destitution’, now there’s a throwback
To a Victorian lexicon:
‘Poverty so extreme that one lacks
the means to provide for oneself’.
Synonyms for destitution include:
Penury; privation; indigence;
Pauperdom; beggary; mendicancy –
Isn’t it interesting to notice,
How many of these synonyms
Seem like archaisms?
Our semantic field for poverty is reluctant
To acknowledge the impact of modernity:
Universal Credit, the gig economy,
Zero hours contracts and so on,
It likes to pretend that poverty is old hat,
Dickensian: Scrooge before redemption;

Home

Raising Funds for the Trussell Trust
In association with the cyclists group from The Prince Albert

I’m walking the Thames to London,
Not in linear sequence:
Flooding prevents that –
But in an act of near nominative determinism,
I present the famous words of Thomas Rainsborough,
From down by the river bank at the Church of St Mary the Virgin,
From the Civil War Putney Debates of 1647:
‘For really I think that the poorest … that is in England
Hath a life to live, as the greatest …’
What would Mr Rainsborough make of the need
For food banks, four hundred years later?

I’m not a great one for sponsorship,
Tbh,
My mantra is ‘Parity not Charity’:
I’m rather more of a supporter of tax,
Not regressive taxes such as VAT,
Where everyone pays the same,
Irrespective of income,
But progressive taxes such as income tax,
So as to redistribute wealth from the rich;
Oh, and another thing about charity:
I dislike the virtue-signalling,
And Americanisation
Of our society, with chuggers in the street,
And the incessant rattling of tins,
And that apparently self-validating cry:
‘Charidee!’

I do give, however, in a random way:
Domestic appeals, national appeals, international appeals,
Beggars in the streets,
Big Issue (not a charity),
Food banks …
Even though it’s a piecemeal patchwork,
Random and uncoordinated:
A personification of charity itself, I suppose …

So here I am in February 2020,
In the year of our Lord of Paupers’ Burials,
In the year of our Lord of Bet Fred,
In the year of our Lord of Universal Credit,
In the year of our Lord of Universal Cruelty,
In the year of our Lord of the Five Week Wait,
Pragmatically doing my bit
For the Trussell Trust,
Which, I think, also feels ambivalent
About its work – as its website says:
‘94% of people at food banks
Are in destitution.
This isn’t right.’

‘Destitution’, now there’s a throwback
To a Victorian lexicon:
‘Poverty so extreme that one lacks
the means to provide for oneself’.
Synonyms for destitution include:
Penury; privation; indigence;
Pauperdom; beggary; mendicancy –
Isn’t it interesting to notice,
How many of these synonyms
Seem like archaisms?
Our semantic field for poverty is reluctant
To acknowledge the impact of modernity:
Universal Credit, the gig economy,
Zero hours contracts and so on,
It likes to pretend that poverty is old hat,
Dickensian: Scrooge before redemption;

So that’s why I am donning my boots and pack,
And walking to London along the Thames,
Piecemeal through the winter, spring and summer,
A homonymic walk along a river’s banks,
To raise funds for the destitute, and food banks,
And you can contribute at the end if you wish,
A mite will do; it all adds up in the end:

Home

Radical Stroud Walks programme 2020

Some walks confirmed – others will have dates confirmed on this website – others more tentative – walkers may need to check social media etc or Good on Paper for precise details. After discussing it with Radical Stroud members, we can’t do Saturdays, I’m afraid.

Wednesday January 29th: A hidden colonial landscape – from the Archway arch to the blackboy clock in Nelson Street. Empire, imperialism, the nation-state of the UK then and now. Meet at the arch at 9.30.

Sunday February 23rd: Rodborough (see website)

MAY DAY Chalford to Stroud – how late 18th and 19th century national politics affected Stroud – Thelwall and Spence – green roots of socialism – the radical lessons of 1790-1820 for today, both in terms of state repression and radical responses. Stroud Labour Party May Festival MAY DAY

Some walks confirmed – others will have dates confirmed on this website – others more tentative – walkers may need to check social media etc or Good on Paper for precise details. After discussing it with Radical Stroud members, we can’t do Saturdays, I’m afraid.

Wednesday January 29th: A hidden colonial landscape – from the Archway arch to the blackboy clock in Nelson Street. Empire, imperialism, the nation-state of the UK then and now. Meet at the arch at 9.30.

Sunday February 23rd: Rodborough (see website)

MAY DAY Chalford to Stroud – how late 18th and 19th century national politics affected Stroud – Thelwall and Spence – green roots of socialism – the radical lessons of 1790-1820 for today, both in terms of state repression and radical responses. Stroud Labour Party May Festival MAY DAY

June – Frampton Green – hear the nightingales – John Keats and his ode – also Keats and To Autumn written a day after Henry Hunt enters London to huge acclaim after imprisonment after Peterloo. 1820-2020 – the Six Acts.

June – Rodborough Fete and beating the bounds of Rodborough possibly.

July (before school holidays) Circular walk to Slad – the deserter in CWRosie and the army mutinies at the end of WW1 – what is ‘progressive nationalism’ in today’s world and future?

August – Golden Spire walks and the parish church.

September – earlyish – Bisley to Stroud – the 1839 Miles Report and the gig economy today and the ‘new working class’. 5. Chartist walk to Selsley and weavers’ riots etc of 18th/19th centuries – how can we recreate the sense of community-based socialism of the 19th and 20th centuries today within the ‘new working class’?

October – earlyish – Chartist walk to Selsley and weavers’ riots etc of 18th/19th centuries – how can we recreate the sense of community-based socialism of the 19thand 20th centuries today within the ‘new working class’?

Liaise with Dursley and Cam and Sharpness etc – Purton hulks walk – riverscapes and communities. NOVEMBER

London – subvert the Mayflower 400th anniversary with a performative walk to the Mayflower pub. DECEMBER

TOADSMOOR WALK

Friday 17th January 2020
Radical Stroud Walk

The Descent of the the Toadsmoor Valley:
From Bisley Church to Brimscombe Port
(and thence via the canal towpath to Stroud)

Approximately 4 miles. Mostly footpaths. Some styles and steep descents. Certain to be very muddy in places. Allow four hours. Bring food for your lunchtime repast. Optional stop for refreshments toward the end of the walk at Stroud Brewery

Directions to the start
Take the 8B bus from Stroud Merriwalks (stand k) at 10:10. Alight outside The Stirrup Cup, Bisley at 10:44 (scheduled arrival time). The walk will begin from this point at 10:50.

Brief guide to the context
This is not intended to be an exhaustive list. On our walks we typically encounter many serendipitous points of interest and discussion.
Bisley is very rich in history, tradition and legend. There are ancient barrows, and significant Roman and Saxon remains in the area. Many of the houses date from the 16th and 17 centuries. Made rich by the wool trade, Bisley suffered economic decline in the 1800s and in 1837, 68 parishioners were given support by the vicar of All Saints to emigrate to new lives in Australia. We will visit the church to discuss this historical event. We will also consider the story of The Bisley Boy (suggesting that Elizabeth 1st was not Elizabeth 1st but was a replaced by a man); the burial of John Davies “ye black” in 1603; the tradition of dressing the impressive wells of Bisley; how Bisley lost its commons and “who stole the donkey’s dinner”.

We will then descend the steep, narrow and seemingly remote Toadsmoor valley via footpaths. Maps reveal that the tree cover of once coppiced woodland in the upper valley has hardly changed in the last 200 years. However, the remains of several mills (of various types) are evident below the fishponds in the lower valley, revealing the industrial legacy of the area.

We will cross the main road at the mouth of the valley and walk past the site of many stick, umbrella and tool handle manufacturing works that occupied the valley floor from the 1850s until the 1920s. In nearby Chalford, one such “stick works”, Dangerford & Co, employed more than 1000 people during the late 1800s.

Finally, we will head west along the canal towpath, past Stroud Brewery and back to Stroud.

Texts used on the walk or written during and after the walk now follow

Friday 17th January 2020
Radical Stroud Walk

The Descent of the the Toadsmoor Valley:
From Bisley Church to Brimscombe Port
(and thence via the canal towpath to Stroud)

Approximately 4 miles. Mostly footpaths. Some styles and steep descents. Certain to be very muddy in places. Allow four hours. Bring food for your lunchtime repast. Optional stop for refreshments toward the end of the walk at Stroud Brewery

Directions to the start
Take the 8B bus from Stroud Merriwalks (stand k) at 10:10. Alight outside The Stirrup Cup, Bisley at 10:44 (scheduled arrival time). The walk will begin from this point at 10:50.

Brief guide to the context
This is not intended to be an exhaustive list. On our walks we typically encounter many serendipitous points of interest and discussion.
Bisley is very rich in history, tradition and legend. There are ancient barrows, and significant Roman and Saxon remains in the area. Many of the houses date from the 16th and 17 centuries. Made rich by the wool trade, Bisley suffered economic decline in the 1800s and in 1837, 68 parishioners were given support by the vicar of All Saints to emigrate to new lives in Australia. We will visit the church to discuss this historical event. We will also consider the story of The Bisley Boy (suggesting that Elizabeth 1st was not Elizabeth 1st but was a replaced by a man); the burial of John Davies “ye black” in 1603; the tradition of dressing the impressive wells of Bisley; how Bisley lost its commons and “who stole the donkey’s dinner”.

We will then descend the steep, narrow and seemingly remote Toadsmoor valley via footpaths. Maps reveal that the tree cover of once coppiced woodland in the upper valley has hardly changed in the last 200 years. However, the remains of several mills (of various types) are evident below the fishponds in the lower valley, revealing the industrial legacy of the area.

We will cross the main road at the mouth of the valley and walk past the site of many stick, umbrella and tool handle manufacturing works that occupied the valley floor from the 1850s until the 1920s. In nearby Chalford, one such “stick works”, Dangerford & Co, employed more than 1000 people during the late 1800s.

Finally, we will head west along the canal towpath, past Stroud Brewery and back to Stroud.

Texts used on the walk or written during and after the walk now follow

Thanks to Robin Treefellow for the following poem written after our walk.

Bisley Water Laughing Toadsmore

From Bisley’s rushing springhead
under the church: splashing, gurgling and giddy.
The water disgorged out the Victorian facade praising
the Creator in pedantic script.
Like a dam in a Welsh valley
the conceit of men to try tame the waters’ flow!
The Bisley spring regimented into its own moulded spout,
as if the reverend who had it built were
trying to educate water into behaving itself.
But in 2020 the water laughs
long away down Toadsmore,
swirling in transgressive script
through the sunk valleys,
brimful out Bismore Bridge.
Beech trees ascend,
while streams descend,
Toadsmore goes walking.
A silvery cask,
the valley is liquid.

There now follows some text on the Bisley emigration and that is followed by some thoughts on ‘Ye Black’ buried at Bisley in 1603.

Foreword
My emigrant’s passage started in Bisley
Along a snowdropped Sunday footpath to the church;
The service had just ended –
I sauntered in through the open door,
And there to my surprise, in a glass case,
Lay a nineteenth century list of parish accounts,
With an italicised card:
‘cost to the Parish of Bisley of ‘emigrating’ 68 persons from the parish’,
Together with a bible open to the fronts-piece:
‘The Bible which was presented by the Reverend Thomas Keble who was the Vicar of Bisley when they and 66 others emigrated to Sydney, Australia in August 1837 [The Bible has been rebound].
Two other information cards lay partially hidden beneath the bible, I could pick out a few words, however:
‘hoped they might have a more prosperous life. They were equipped with clothes, transport and food to Bristol and Thomas Keble also presented each family with a Bible and a Prayer Book.’

Prologue the First: Mr Ricardo

EMIGRATION
CONSIDERED AS A MEANS OF RELIEF
IN THE PRESENT DISTRESSED
CONDITION OF THE POOR
IN THIS
NEIGHBOURHOOD
BY DAVID RICARDO, ESQ.
STROUD:
PRINTED BY J.P. BRISLEY
1838.
Price One Penny each, or Five Shillings per Hundred.
EMIGRATION

The distress of the Poor at all times forms a strong claim upon our sympathy and compassion – and though in some cases it may be brought on by their own idleness and improvidence, and therefore require the application of strong measures to check its growth … like a parent who chastises his child … But in the present condition of the Poor in this Neighbourhood … we have to encounter all the difficulties of a failing trade, and our inability to substitute any other means of independent labour … their patience and resignation is urging on their more influential neighbours to make efforts to assist them.
The question is, – what is the best means of affording them effectual relief? …In the first instance, a Subscription was proposed, and the Rev. Thos. Keble, with that spirit of kindness and benevolence which characterize all his proceedings … raised a considerable sum among his own immediate friends; but it is quite clear that a sum of money thus raised could never be sufficiently large to meet the emergency of the case – and besides, it would only meet half the evil, for the question is, not to provide the poor with bread by the hand of Private Charity, but to devise some means by which they may earn it for themselves.

This proved to be the case – the Funds raised were found to be inadequate … shortly after, the first attempt was made to introduce a more sound and effectual system of Relief. A ship was sent to Bristol, and a portion of the unemployed Labourers were invited to go to another country … but from an indisposition to engage in anything new, and from a general misapprehension … this attempt did not meet with all the success it deserved; still, some families availed themselves of the offer, and the accounts they have sent home of their prosperous condition in New South Wales have tended to dispel the natural prejudices which all must feel against a country of which they know nothing. All parties agree to the relief occasioned by the departure of the few that went – and if at any future time Emigration should be conducted on a larger scale, we must still look back to this first Attempt, as the step from which all our further efforts have sprung.
About this time, Her Majesty at the suggestion of the House of Commons sent down a Commissioner to enquire into the distressed state of the Neighbourhood, and to see if any means could be devised to alleviate it. The Commissioner came down, and gave the fullest and most patient attention to the subject: he enquired of all classes … and the result was … with our failing Trade … the only means likely to give us real relief, was Emigration …
application was again made to Government to facilitate Emigration … but the engagements already formed prevented them from giving us a ship this year – however,–they showed their good will by requesting Mr. Marshall, the private Agent of the Colonial Government to come down, who has offered a passage to 205 persons; they hold out to us the hope of further and more effectual assistance next year, and there is every reason to hope, that Emigration may be carried on to a larger extent.
The following is a brief account of the nature of the assistance offered by Government …The expense of the Passage of a man and his wife to Sydney … is £35, but this sum is not raised by a Tax on us, but is supplied by the Funds, which the Colonial Government has raised by the Sale of Lands in Australia. It is of importance to bear this in mind … the Colonial Government very reasonably claims the right to itself of refusing to convey persons who would not be serviceable to them – the Government tells us, “all that you have to do for your Emigrants is to provide them with proper clothes and to put them on board the Ship …”
The quantity of Clothing required for each Passenger is, besides a Bible and if possible a Prayer Book, 12 shirts or shifts, 2 flannel petticoats (for females,) 12 pair of dark stockings, 3 towels, and such other articles of dress as are essential to cleanliness, health, and comfort; also a knife and fork, table and tea-spoons, peter or tin plate, tin pots, comb, soap, &c.
These articles are very expensive … it will often happen that a man may sell all his household goods, and yet not be able to raise a fund sufficient to provide them: if no fund were raised to assist … the poor man must linger on here … while the outlay of 30s. would convey him to a land of plenty …
The means of providing the Funds … are by a Rate upon the Parish. By a recent law, Parishes are allowed to borrow any Sum not exceeding half the Rates of the Parish for the purpose of Emigration, and to repay it in five years … this Neighbourhood is but one vast Family, and if we were to take away a portion of the more active and put them in a situation to fend for themselves, the bread that supported them is still left behind, and will be divided among those who remain … in the shape of an increase of Wages …
No! These are not the evils of Emigration … Expense … Clothing …Landlord … Tenant. A thousand other little interested considerations cross our thoughts and influence our minds, while we overlook the real and great objection to sending our Emigrants abroad – the sending them to a place where there is no Church Establishment regularly formed, and where they will often be placed in situations such, that they will not have the opportunity of having the blessed truths of the Gospel brought home to them. – But the eye of the Lord is in every place … if in the conscientious discharge of the duties committed to us, we should provide some of our neighbours with the means of going to New South Wales, I feel convinced that He will follow them there; – we shall in the mean time be looking upon that Country as the Land of our relations and friends … it must be our unceasing endeavour to send to them all the advantages of Religious Worship we enjoy at home.

Gatcombe, 15th Nov. 1838.
HINTS

For the consideration of Persons desirous to Emigrate

  • Large Families of young Children will in no case be taken at the expense of the Colonies. Young married people with families just coming on are the most eligible.
  • Each Applicant should be provided with Testimonials of his Character signed by the Clergyman of his Parish, or the Minister of that religious persuasion to which he belongs, and the respectable persons who may know him. Character is of great use.
  • Each Applicant should be provided with proper Certificates of his Health and the Health of his Family.
  • No woman would be received on board, who is so far advanced in a state of pregnancy, as to render it probable that she might be confined before the termination of the voyage.
  • None would be received on board, unless they have been previously vaccinated or had the Small Pox. Persons having families would do well to look to this, and get their Children vaccinated at once.
  • Linen made up of Calico of inferior quality may be had at the Market House School, Minchinhampton. Shirts, price 1s 3d. Shifts, 11d. and other Articles in the same proportion.

There is still room for a few young married persons of good character and not having large families of young children, by the ship Roxburgh Castle, on 28th December next. The fullest information on all subjects connected with Emigration may be obtained by applying at Gatcombe, on Monday and Tuesday in any week, between the hours of nine and ten.

J. P. Brisley Stroudwater Printing Office.

How does ‘Ye Black’ buried at Bisley in 1603 fit into all this?
That terse parish record entry:
‘John Davies, ye Black, buried 22November 1603 Bisley’,
Can blow your mind when you pass the village,
Cycling to Oakridge and Sapperton,
On the trail of the Mason-Dixon line,
Africa, and America,
And the sugar plantations
In the West Indies;
It’s high up, Bisley,
The wind blows cold, the rain sweeps in,
The snow can settle,
And ‘vapours rolling down a valley
Make a lonely scene more lonesome’;
So how do we rescue you, John Davies,
‘From the enormous condescension of posterity’?
How do we recreate your life to give voice to you?
These questions might be rhetorical,
They might be existential and ontological –
What was your real name?
Why John Davies?
How did you end up in Bisley?
Where were you born?
How long was your life in Bisley?
Did the weather quickly kill you?
Had you no immunity against the common cold, flu and so on?
Could you speak English?
Did the locals point at you, laugh and mock?
Were you a slave?
A servant?
A fashion accessory?
Were you baptised into the Christian faith?
Were you buried in consecrated ground?
Did you cry yourself to sleep?
How did your mind cope with this exile?
And with this stolen identity and stolen self?
Did you die of melancholy?
Was death a blessed release?
How can we memorialise you?
‘John Davies, ye Black, buried 22November 1603 Bisley’,

“Beating the Bounds” of Rodborough Parish

Radical Stroud
Terminalia Walking Festival
Sunday 23 rd February 2020

“Beating the Bounds” of Rodborough Parish

In honour of the Roman God of boundaries we will walk around the limits of the parish of Rodborough.

Parishes were once very important administrative areas and ceremonially walking the boundaries of a parish (known as “Beating the Bounds”) was a significant local custom in many places. Important boundary landmarks such as trees or stones would be ceremonially beaten with birch or willow rods. Sometimes young boys (typically choir boys) would also be ceremonially beaten at key places (supposedly to ensure that they would remember the parish boundaries!).

On this walk we intend to revive certain aspects of this custom for one day. Specifically, walking the boundary and beating key landmarks, but most definitely NOT beating young boys. As we progress there will be discussions and performative celebration of local matters, historical, political, industrial, cultural, geological, ecological and mythological. The boundary of Rodborough parish follows canals and disused railway lines, makes steep ascents and descents of beautiful Cotswold valleys and crosses the limestone grassland of an ancient common.

Radical Stroud
Terminalia Walking Festival
Sunday 23 rd February 2020

“Beating the Bounds” of Rodborough Parish

In honour of the Roman God of boundaries we will walk around the limits of the parish of Rodborough.

Parishes were once very important administrative areas and ceremonially walking the boundaries of a parish (known as “Beating the Bounds”) was a significant local custom in many places. Important boundary landmarks such as trees or stones would be ceremonially beaten with birch or willow rods. Sometimes young boys (typically choir boys) would also be ceremonially beaten at key places (supposedly to ensure that they would remember the parish boundaries!).

On this walk we intend to revive certain aspects of this custom for one day. Specifically, walking the boundary and beating key landmarks, but most definitely NOT beating young boys. As we progress there will be discussions and performative celebration of local matters, historical, political, industrial, cultural, geological, ecological and mythological. The boundary of Rodborough parish follows canals and disused railway lines, makes steep ascents and descents of beautiful Cotswold valleys and crosses the limestone grassland of an ancient common.

Approximately 8 miles. Allow 6 hours. Bring refreshments and food. Towpaths and footpaths and some very steep climbs / descents. Several stiles to cross.

The walk will start and end at Stroud Railway station.
Map ref SO 84973 05124. Meet in the forecourt for a 10.00 am start.

Contact Bob Fry threemthree@icloud.com

Beating the Bounds of Rodborough
A free verse Perambulation by Stuart Butler

The origin of beating the parish boundaries
Is, of course, lost in the proverbial mists:
The Roman festival of Terminalia,
Anglo-Saxon affirmation of place,
The Christian ceremony of Rogation-tide …
But I think you can beat the boundaries
Whenever you like, with whoever you like,
At the drop of a Rodborough bobble hat.

You could start at the watery history
Of mill and factory Dudbridge,
Then walk past street names like Spillmans,
As you progress along the Bath Road turnpike,
Past the ghost sites of old toll houses,
And thence to Walbridge to skirt the canal,
Or River Frome or Great Western Railway,
To gaze up at Woodhouse, Rodborough Common,
Butterow Hill and Bagpath.

Then ascend Swells Hill, past Bownham;
On past Houndscroft, above the Nailsworth Valley,
To Rooksmoor and Kingscourt;
Your bounds direct you through Lightpill,
No ifs but The Butts above high above you,
And so back to Dudbridge.

On the way, you could say a prayer
In a couple of churches,
Bless the crops in a couple of allotments,
Have a pint in a couple of pubs or a hotel,
Have an ice cream at Winstone’s,
Or even write a record of your parish walk,
Your own beating the bounds act of heritage.

But remember:

‘The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.’ (T.S. Eliot)