Author: Stuart Butler

It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

It came upon a midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
When angels bent down to the earth,
And changed machine guns into harps,
And turned leaden bullets into golden carols
That drifted across no man’s land,
And choirs of soldiers joined the angels
In a cease-fire of exultation,
While all the bloodied uniformed citizens
Of heaven above watched as silent knights,
As helmets and caps and whisky and schnapps
Were passed from frozen side to frozen side,
When a Tommy kicked a football up into the air,
And there it stayed, suspended high up in the sky,
Shining for ever in a continent’s memory;
A star of peace in a bleak midwinter’s century.

It came upon a midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
When angels bent down to the earth,
And changed machine guns into harps,
And turned leaden bullets into golden carols
That drifted across no man’s land,
And choirs of soldiers joined the angels
In a cease-fire of exultation,
While all the bloodied uniformed citizens
Of heaven above watched as silent knights,
As helmets and caps and whisky and schnapps
Were passed from frozen side to frozen side,
When a Tommy kicked a football up into the air,
And there it stayed, suspended high up in the sky,
Shining for ever in a continent’s memory;
A star of peace in a bleak midwinter’s century.

North and South

There, on the one hand, St. Pancras and Paris;
And there, on the other, Kings Cross:
Gateway to the LNER,
And night mails crossing the border,

And gateway to a world we have lost:
Pit heads and winding gear, tram-roads and collieries,
And curling smoke chimney stacks:
The world of the North,

The canvas telling the truth,
Up there in the Mining Art Gallery,
At Bishop Auckland:

A terrible beauty down there in the dark depths,
And a beautiful harmony up there in the streets
And homes and chapels and clubs and pubs:
The stippled mist-light of the pit village,
The twisted sinews in the eighteen inch seam,
Ears keening with the creak of each pit prop,
The mind tracking the echo of dripping water,
And the whisper of each rock –

There, on the one hand, St. Pancras and Paris;
And there, on the other, Kings Cross:
Gateway to the LNER,
And night mails crossing the border,

And gateway to a world we have lost:
Pit heads and winding gear, tram-roads and collieries,
And curling smoke chimney stacks:
The world of the North,

The canvas telling the truth,
Up there in the Mining Art Gallery,
At Bishop Auckland:

A terrible beauty down there in the dark depths,
And a beautiful harmony up there in the streets
And homes and chapels and clubs and pubs:
The stippled mist-light of the pit village,
The twisted sinews in the eighteen inch seam,
Ears keening with the creak of each pit prop,
The mind tracking the echo of dripping water,
And the whisper of each rock –

The unspoken fear of entombment,
The threat of explosion;

Eyes quick and darting,

The scent of fire damp,
Methane in the air;

And then there, on another broad canvas,
The women in the kitchen, curlers in the hair,
Stoking up the fire, preparing the bait,
Eyes smarting in the washday steam;

Out there,
Pigeons and whippets and ponies in the field,
Spuds for sale with the Christmas wreaths,
Communal allotments and shared apple trees,

The colliery football teams,
Like West Auckland,
Winners of the first World Cup in 1908 –
They beat Juventus and all,
But didn’t get paid while they were away,

But at least their wives and mothers and sisters
Weren’t grieving at the pithead though,
Grieving for their menfolk,
Trapped down there below,
Bodies trapped and wrapped by the black gold,
The black gold that heated the homes and mansions,
The factories, warehouses, palaces, stations and offices,
The black gold
That powered the smiths, and forges and furnaces,
That powered the trains and shipping lines,
The battleships and the dreadnoughts.

But we were now gazing at a sunset smelted sky
Flaming out over drystone walls and snow capped hills,
And the tumps of old lead mines,

While Christmas lights blazed in the villages,
While pub windows glowed orange in the twilight,
Beyond the nail parlours and tattoo shops,

While we tracked the paths of Charles Dickens,
Wackford Squeers, Smike and Nicholas Nickleby,
Through Barnard Castle and thence to Durham,
Where men and women swopped tales of football,
And where three pints cost six quid,
And where we were allowed to serve ourselves,
While coal, not dole, fires roared in Victorian grates,

Until we went to the People’s Bookshop,
Where books to inspire and educate and value
All line the shelves,
Not priced, but there for a donation,
What you could afford –

And where we talked of a divided ruling class,
And where we talked of victory,
Victory for the working class,
Victory at the next election,
As the sun once more sank in the west;

And so to the Pitmen’s Parliament,
Where a vast audience gathered
Beneath the banners of past struggles and victories,
For a class struggle film of Dennis Skinner,
And talk not just of class,
But of race and gender, too,
Where the ghosts of Socialism past,
Embraced those of Socialism Present and Future,
A world not so much as lost,
As a paradise waiting to be regained,
A union of North and South:

‘Oh, Jeremy Corbyn.’

‘In the bar room, in the bar room,
That’s where we congregate,
To drill the holes, shovel coals and shovel up the slate,
And for to do a job of work,
Oh, I am never late,
That’s provided we can do it in the bar room.’

A Lament for Dorothy and Archie

Each little river has a tale which, if understood, cannot fail
To edify the Human heart; mine’s of Lovers who’d not part:
Both loved Nature, read her runes and worshipped countless harvest moons.
He, a Minchinhampton Man – she the lanes of Burleigh ran,
Eager, passionate, enthralled to embrace her Archibald.
The stream that gushes into town on Hazel Woods, as hail, crashed down.
High on that ridge where sheep are shorn, a tiny rivulet was born.
It seeped through soil and chiselled stone, caressing sea-spawned Cotswold bone.
A weave of light like soft silk shook became a dancing, babbling brook.
Through Gatcombe Park the waters curled, then through its stately gardens swirled
To trace a spiral as they whirled past Longfords Mill.

A Lament For Dorothy and Archibald
Who took their lives on the 28th August 1916

Each little river has a tale which, if understood, cannot fail
To edify the Human heart; mine’s of Lovers who’d not part:
Both loved Nature, read her runes and worshipped countless harvest moons.
He, a Minchinhampton Man – she the lanes of Burleigh ran,
Eager, passionate, enthralled to embrace her Archibald.
The stream that gushes into town on Hazel Woods, as hail, crashed down.
High on that ridge where sheep are shorn, a tiny rivulet was born.
It seeped through soil and chiselled stone, caressing sea-spawned Cotswold bone.
A weave of light like soft silk shook became a dancing, babbling brook.
Through Gatcombe Park the waters curled, then through its stately gardens swirled
To trace a spiral as they whirled past Longfords Mill.
Silhouette upon a twig, a dancing bird performs a jig;
She tips her tail, she dips her bill, she fans her feathers, she drinks her fill.
Mesmerised within this stream, new-born fish cascade and gleam;
So receptive is this river, even ducklings make it shiver;
Yet in this water, ice-cold, holy, these Lovers dipped their warm skin… slowly;
One a boy of twenty-four, off to fight a foreign war,
One a maid of sweet eighteen, whose love was rich and raw and keen:
These Lovers, who would not be parted, had a notion, which once started took firm root:
there was a way to overcome their Parting-day;
Sworn with many a heart-felt vow, they meant to end their lives right now,
To slip beneath Iron Mills Pond and from this Vale of Tears abscond,
To slip beneath an steel-cold lake and never ever once more wake
And to that end, with all their might, they bound his army great-coat tight
About their loving limbs, and then they slipped beneath that water
That stole away an old man’s daughter;
That stole away an only child – a boy once meek and sweet and wild.
In The Weighbridge Inn their bodies lay – was it for this God fashioned clay?
Was it for this that they were born, to never see another dawn?
To never witness dawn’s clear light first kindle then set the vale alight?
To never see each drop of dew shimmer with a rainbow hue,
To never hear a barn-owl sing, or watch the moonlight flood her wing,
To never smell his lover’s hair, or kiss those lips beyond compare.
He’s buried now, not far from home and those wild woods he used to roam,
His stone’s by Minchinhampton’s Church and near it passing crows find perch.
Her, sadder, grave, in Amberley, is all but lost to gravity,
Her tottering stone is sinking down towards rich earth that holds her crown,
Her hair, her eyes, her loving heart that from her Archie wouldn’t part;
Her unkempt grave, beneath a lime bears witness to another crime,
How could so sad and tender a tale be all but lost: let us not fail
To spread their edifying story. Tragic? Yes, yet tinged with glory:
For Love, Sweet Love, they’d die as one and forgo both stars and sun.
Their final words? The War they cursed, then defied Death to do his worst.

Thanks to Anthony Hentschel for the above post.

What Makes People Love History

What makes People love history?
So that it becomes a passion,
Not a subject, nor hobby, nor interest,
Not a diversion, nor a pastime,
But a consuming passion instead.

I started to read the virtual edition
Of the History Workshop Journal,
A compendium of contributors
And historians, who recounted
The reasons, recollections, emotions,
And afternoon madeleine moments,
That all conspired, to conjure forth
A love of the study of the past:
A Passion for History.

I’ve added my own, too;
I wonder which of these apply to you?

For example …

What makes People love history?
So that it becomes a passion,
Not a subject, nor hobby, nor interest,
Not a diversion, nor a pastime,
But a consuming passion instead.

I started to read the virtual edition
Of the History Workshop Journal,
A compendium of contributors
And historians, who recounted
The reasons, recollections, emotions,
And afternoon madeleine moments,
That all conspired, to conjure forth
A love of the study of the past:
A Passion for History.

I’ve added my own, too;
I wonder which of these apply to you?

For example …

The transformative book that showed you
That History wasn’t just a school subject
(Possibly your best – but why?)
Where you got things right or wrong,
And got marked and graded;
The book that became part of you,
Rather than something you tossed in your satchel;
The transformative book that wasn’t a text book,
With dull, deadly facts, tables, dates and statistics,
But a book that was elegantly written,
A book that made the past alive,
And relevant to whenever today might be,
A book that conjoined the then and the now,
Took you away from linear time,
And showed you that’s what History can do.
(E.P. Thompson first for me.)

The discovery that History could involve emotion,
Or an imaginative flight from linear logic,
It could help you hear voices, as it were,
Far from academe’s ivory towers,
And slip through Time’s wormholes.

Or it could be elsewhere or earlier in childhood,
The Christmas present of a history book,
Fairy stories, nursery rhymes,
Picture books,
The film on the telly,
Or Disney at the cinema,
The merchandising,
The spin-offs that turn a child into a reader,
The trip to the museum,
Family history,
A religious text,
A family bible,
The local war memorial,
Sunday tea at your gran’s,
Acting in the school play,
Displays in the school classroom,
Jackdaws,
The inspirational teacher,

Discovering that the history of a period
Could be studied through the literature of a period,
The discovery that fiction was not a separate subject;

Old maps and artefacts,
An old atlas,
Encyclopaedias,
Pictures and portraits on walls,
Collecting,
Ephemera,
The names of pubs,
Second hand shops and vintage shops,
Making your own museum,
Going beyond the empirical and documented,
With creative reimagining;

Politics,
Activism,
Migration,
Conversation,
Walking,
Landscape,
Cloudscape,
Seascape,
Riverscape,
Roofscape,
Music,
Dreaming,
Summer holidays,
Roaming,
Listening,
Remembering …
Googling …

I wonder which of these apply to you?

What would you add?
For …

What makes People love history?
So that it becomes a passion,
Not a subject, nor hobby, nor interest,
Not a diversion, nor a pastime,
But a consuming passion instead.

The Pilgrim’s True Path

It started with a glance out of the bus,
A blood red disc of a sandstorm sun,
It was ten past ten.

The light numinous rather than luminous,
As we opened the door to leave Bisley church,
Emigrant-ghosts waiting for the Bristol cart,
And a six week voyage to New South Wales.
It was twenty to eleven.

We walked through deep, shadowed holloways,
Walking the Bisley Path,
High above the valley marshlands,
Through woodland shrouded in the strange glow
Of another world’s grey-green light,
The harbinger of Hurricane Ophelia,
The wind now shrieking through the creaking trees,
Leaves falling like some autumn snowstorm.

Thanks to Mark Hewlett and Andrew Budd for the above images.

It started with a glance out of the bus,
A blood red disc of a sandstorm sun,
It was ten past ten.

The light numinous rather than luminous,
As we opened the door to leave Bisley church,
Emigrant-ghosts waiting for the Bristol cart,
And a six week voyage to New South Wales.
It was twenty to eleven.

We walked through deep, shadowed holloways,
Walking the Bisley Path,
High above the valley marshlands,
Through woodland shrouded in the strange glow
Of another world’s grey-green light,
The harbinger of Hurricane Ophelia,
The wind now shrieking through the creaking trees,
Leaves falling like some autumn snowstorm.

We were dry-shod, however; the leaf-path
A russet covered rustling track-way,
Until we descended to the spring line,
Thence to cross the Slad Brook’s hidden bridge,
Where medieval pilgrims, too, once crossed,
Travelling to Gloucester Abbey.

At Shepescombe Green, Reformation revenants
Dangled from the crossroad gallows:
We sought solace and succour at Dells Farm,
At the Quaker burial ground;

Blue skies rushed in from the westward hills,
As we trod a corpse-path;
It was afternoon.

The church bells rang out from Painswick,
To welcome us past sun-gleamed streams,
To the Celestial City,
Where a black-coated congregation hurried to church,
Like Lowry figures struggling with a headwind,
‘He was Roman Catholic but their church isn’t big enough for the big family.
So they’re using our church.’

The sun was red again, but was swallowed by the cloud.
It disappeared behind the church spire,
While the old church bells tolled for thee and me;
It was two o’clock.

We had walked five and a half miles,
From the high church of ‘Beggarly Bisley’,
Along ancient paths to a funeral at Painswick:
In these short hours of seeming pathetic fallacy,
We walked through the history of our Christianity,
A Pilgrim’s Progress,
High above the Slough of Despond.

On Seeing The Grave of Sir Fabian Ware at Amberley

On the surface, it all seems quite equal,
The Great War cemeteries and gravestones:
Identical – uniform – symbolic –
Equality of sacrifice in death;

But a different story lies beneath:
Officers: seasoned wood for their coffins,
And lids that were carefully screwed down;
Men and other ranks: had unseasoned wood,
And lids that were brusquely nailed and hammered;

1918 saw the vote given to some women –
But not the canary girls and phossie jaws,
They had to wait another ten years –
But also some five and a half million men:
Only 60% of males had the vote
When war broke out for King and Country.

On the surface, it all seems quite equal,
The Great War cemeteries and gravestones:
Identical – uniform – symbolic –
Equality of sacrifice in death;

But a different story lies beneath:
Officers: seasoned wood for their coffins,
And lids that were carefully screwed down;
Men and other ranks: had unseasoned wood,
And lids that were brusquely nailed and hammered;

1918 saw the vote given to some women –
But not the canary girls and phossie jaws,
They had to wait another ten years –
But also some five and a half million men:
Only 60% of males had the vote
When war broke out for King and Country.

Upstairs, Downstairs:

All those men over the age of twenty-one,
Giving their lives for King and Country,
Vote-less;
All those eighteen year olds,
Giving their lives for King and Country,
Vote-less;
All those women,
Giving their lives for King and Country,
Vote-less;

Stanley Baldwin on the new MPs of 1918
(‘The Khaki Election’):
“A lot of hard faced men who look as if
they had done very well out of the war.”

‘If I should die, think only this of me,
That there is some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England’ …
For there they lie:
‘Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori.’

Remembering Stroud’s Conscientious Objectors from WW1

‘How do you prove you have a conscience?’

You came to me via a pdf,
Out of the blue,
Via a Facebook message,
On a hot afternoon in late July,
With names, occupations, addresses and ages –
A bit like a census, in a strange way:
Official, bald, and bureaucratic
In your modernity,
No telegrams today.

Eighteen conscientious objectors
Whose courage, principles and politics,
Whose ethics, morals and steadfastness
Enabled them to stand up against the crowd,
In those heated days before and after July 1916,
And before and after November 1918.

‘How do you prove you have a conscience?’

You came to me via a pdf,
Out of the blue,
Via a Facebook message,
On a hot afternoon in late July,
With names, occupations, addresses and ages –
A bit like a census, in a strange way:
Official, bald, and bureaucratic
In your modernity,
No telegrams today.

Eighteen conscientious objectors
Whose courage, principles and politics,
Whose ethics, morals and steadfastness
Enabled them to stand up against the crowd,
In those heated days before and after July 1916,
And before and after November 1918.

Men from Stroud and around the Five Valleys,
Part of the 16,000, countrywide,
Who faced angry, suspicious tribunals
That demeaned and intimidated,
That despised sincerity and conscience,
As they deliberated on their verdicts:
“Does this man deserve absolute exemption?
Or some alternative to military service?
Or an army non-combatant role?
Or is he a liar?
Should he be summarily dispatched?
To the army, to training camp,
The front line and ‘combatant duties’?”

Some of you may have taken on medical and hospital work
(Some 6,500 did),

Some of you may have absolutely resisted:
You may have refused medical examinations,
You may have refused to wear uniforms,
You may have refused to march, salute or stand up …

You may have faced polite persuasion,
Or you may have been forced to wear a uniform,
Or wear a straitjacket,
Or have been placed in solitary confinement,
Or been one of the 6,000 thrown into prison
(‘Funny. You’re in for murder and I’m in here for refusing to.’)
Or been given ‘field punishments’,
Or been beaten up,

Or been given a death sentence,
That after a few seconds pause …
With hearts racing and with anxious swallowing …
Would be commuted to ten years’ imprisonment with hard labour.

I don’t know the judgements that you received,
And I don’t know what happened to you after the war
(If you survived),
The victimization that you faced
Might well have gone well beyond losing the vote,
Work, wages, friendship, family, faith,
People spitting in the streets as you passed by,
White feathers slipped through your letter box,

While gathering numbers of others,
Began to shake your hand,
Or place an arm around your shoulder,
And begin to wonder whether you might have been right,
All along,
When you stood alone.

But I silently stand and shake your ghostly hands,
And hope that at the going down of the sun,
And in the morning,
We will remember you:
Eighteen conscientious objectors
Whose courage, principles and politics,
Whose ethics, morals and steadfastness
Enabled them to stand up against the crowd:

1. Allen, James Whiteway Colony Stroud Labourer 21 (1916)

2. Apperley, Ebor 32, Bath Place Stroud Printer/compositor at Copeland Chatterson and Co. 27 (1916)

3. Burford, Edward Wyatt Edge Road, Painswick Grocer’s porter 35 (1916)

4. Butt, William Henry Stonehouse Farmer 26 (1916)

5. Clements, Harry Whiteway Colony Stroud Market gardener

6. Clements, William John Whiteway Colony Stroud Market gardener

7. Cole, Will Whiteway Colony Stroud Chemist turned market gardener

8. Cossham, Philip Raymond Park Farm Lypiatt, Nr. Stroud Land Agent 21 (1916) b. Cirencester

9. Hampton, Thomas Moor Hall Randwick, nr Stroud Described as a ‘Monk’

10. Kenworthy, George C. Whiteway Colony Stroud Farmer and carrier 26 (1916) b. Birkenhead

11. Kenworthy, John F. Whiteway Colony Stroud Farmer and carrier 28 (1916) b. Birkenhead

12. Mortimer, William Nailsworth Nailsworth Nr. Stroud Antiques and furniture dealer 36 (1916)

13. Murray, Stormont Oliver Whiteway Colony Stroud 19 (1917) b. Islington June 1898

14. Rudland, William 2, Bank Buildings, Regent Street Stonehouse Brushmaker 28 (1916)

15. Stevens, Will or Bill Whiteway Colony Stroud

16. Tilley, Albert Edward 4, John Street Stroud Jobbing Compositor at Copeland Chatterson and Co. 28 (1916)

17. Trussler, Arthur William Moor Court Gardens Amberley Professional gardener

18. Weight, Joseph Alfred Nailsworth, near Stroud Refrigerating Engineer 39 (1917) b. Nailsworth

Walking from Scottsquar Hill to Painswick and to Stroud

Prologue:

Stuart
I want to visit this spring in Painswick tomorrow. Have you ever been there? 10. St Tabitha’s Well (SO 867 097).  Issues from the roadside halfway down Tibbywell Lane which leads to the mill in the valley bottom. A simple stone spout pours water into a small pool which then drains away under some stone slabs. The street name is an intriguing derivative of the well’s name! And here is a bit about st Tab. Also known as Dorcas!

Commemorated on October 25
St. Tabitha was a virtuous and kindly woman who belonged to the Christian community in Joppa. She was known for her good deeds and almsgiving. Having become grievously ill, she suddenly died. At that time, the Apostle Peter was preaching at Lydda, not far from Joppa. Messengers were sent to him with an urgent request for help. When the Apostle arrived at Joppa, Tabitha was already dead. On bended knee, St. Peter made a fervent prayer to the Lord. Then he went to the bed and called out, “Tabitha, get up!” She arose, completely healed (Acts 9:36). St. Tabitha is considered the patron saint of tailors and seamstresses, since she was known for sewing coats and other garments (Acts 9:39).

Saint Tabitha’s Well

Washbrook Farm “New” Front Door

Secular Signage

Washbrook Farm Old Front Door

Thanks to Mark Hewlett for the above photographs.

Prologue:

Stuart
I want to visit this spring in Painswick tomorrow.  Have you ever been there? 10. St Tabitha’s Well (SO 867 097).    Issues from the roadside halfway down Tibbywell Lane which leads to the mill in the valley bottom. A simple stone spout pours water into a small pool which then drains away under some stone slabs. The street name is an intriguing derivative of the well’s name! And here is a bit about st Tab.  Also known as Dorcas!

Commemorated on October 25
St. Tabitha was a virtuous and kindly woman who belonged to the Christian community in Joppa. She was known for her good deeds and almsgiving. Having become grievously ill, she suddenly died. At that time, the Apostle Peter was preaching at Lydda, not far from Joppa. Messengers were sent to him with an urgent request for help. When the Apostle arrived at Joppa, Tabitha was already dead. On bended knee, St. Peter made a fervent prayer to the Lord. Then he went to the bed and called out, “Tabitha, get up!” She arose, completely healed (Acts 9:36). St. Tabitha is considered the patron saint of tailors and seamstresses, since she was known for sewing coats and other garments (Acts 9:39).

The Walk

Some Notes on the Route Taken

The 63 bus from Nailsworth to Gloucester dropped us precisely on the line of the Cotswold Way at Scottsquar Hill. We crossed the road and went East, following the official route of the Way to reach Painswick.

This took us first through the old quarries of Scottsquar, revealing bands of inferior oolite , then down hill over Rudge Common Nature Reserve, across the main road by the Edgemore Inn and further down Jenkin’s Lane, towards but not actually reaching, Jenkin’s Farm. We turned left and then right across the fields to pass the curiously half way(ish) marker stone denoting (approximately) the mid point on the Cotswold Way.

Then down to the wooded Washbrook stream, eventually turning right to pass the two front doors of Washbrook Farm. One is half buried below the present ground level and bricked up. The other is elevated and up a flight of stairs. Both show a curious coat of arms on their richly carved lintels. (“a puzzling building needing more investigation” – britishlistedbuildings.co.UK.)

From there we climbed the slope of the Washbrook valley to enter Painswick.

Uncountable yet numbered yews were noted, Spencerian graffiti photographed and much needed coffee drunk.

To find Saint Tabitha’s Well we left Painswick by the diminutively named (and slightly twee sounding) “Tibbywell Lane”. Down this lane, about half way to the valley floor a simple stone spout set in a dry stone wall pours clear water into a small pool which then flows away under stone slabs. It is enchanting and quite beautiful. Quite why this spring should be named after Saint Tabitha is unknown. There seems to have been a move to secularise it in the local signage (see photograph of “Tabitha’s Well”).

Tibbywell Lane was once part of a much used ancient track way to Bisley and on to Cirencester. However, we left this route when we reached the valley floor, turning South West to follow a series of footpaths along the Painswick Valley toward Stroud.

At first the route closely followed the Painswick Stream past the sites of several old mills but eventually we slowly climbed the valley side via footpaths through Sheephouse and Hammonds Farm. The meadows here are broad and lush and cut by the deep, wooded gullies of three streams that emerge from springs below the line of Wick Street only two or three hundred yards further up the side of the valley.

Eventually we crossed Wick Street (Painswick Old Road), to re-enter Stroud via the footpath above Badbrook stream.

We talked of many things on our walk from Rudge Corner through Painswick and back to Stroud: Why is Paganhill so-called? Why the maypole? We discussed the arch, the spring at Puckhole, Oolite limestone, Cotswold quarries, The Siege of Gloucester 1643, the cannon ball marks on the church tower, The parliamentarian graffiti in Painswick Church: ‘Be old but not too bold.’ The Ice Age and the path of the River Thames, hydraulic rams, Thomas Berwick lookalike oak trees flaming in the fields, Ornate, embellished depictions of Keatsian fecundity over at Washbrook House: Pediment pictures suggestive of ‘Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness … Who hath not seen thee oft … sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep …’

We talked of 18th century food riots, weavers’ riots, skimmingtons, ghost roads, holloways, We walked past countless streams, springs and brooks, past Eyebright [Euphrasia] and, on marshy ground, Redshank [Persicaria maculosa]. Crumbling old bridges, silent mills, ghost waterwheels, redcoat ghosts, turnpike ghosts, Tollhouse ghosts, Mossy mouldering drystone walls, riven by towering beech trees, An Ozymandian valley of industry, now oozing, whispering, sighing through the leaves falling in the rain-swept breeze: ‘Look on my works, ye mighty and despair!’

We talked of Theodolites, trigonometry, chains and furlongs, the Mason-Dixon Line, Lucerne, crop rotation, Turnip Townshend and his four course with fallow, Equinoctial autumn, Thomas Hood’s November: ‘No Sun, no moon … November’, Memories of old school November frosts, Viking words like ‘hoar’ and ‘rime’, The Ancient Mariner, Coleridge’s Fears in Solitude and Frost at Midnight:
‘The frost performs its secret ministry unhelped by any wind’, Wordsworth in the shrouded treeline above the stream: ‘When vapours rolling down a valley Made a lonely scene more lonesome’,
How if we hadn’t had arranged this walk and tryst Then we all would have stayed in, moaning about the drizzle And would have missed all the magic of Coleridge’s Playbills: “Announcing each day the performance by his supreme Majesty’s Servants, the Clouds, Waters, Sun, Moon, Stars”, How last Saturday had been so hot, with bees in the flowers, ‘Until they think warm days will never cease’, But we know they will, and they are, as lowering, louring clouds over Stroud, (Like a limned Sutcliffe Whitby skyscape, or a tinted picture from a Claude eye glass, A heightened atmospheric picturesque, stretching along Badbrook, To its confluence with the cinema and the weavers’ strikes of 1825) Made so evident … the clock is ticking and the daylight receding, But the lessons we ignored in our schooldays still lie in our satchels, It might be William Blake now, but it’s Isaac Newton after break.
And talk of Gilbert White and his Hampshire word ‘hangar’ for woodland hanging above a coombe, And how Pitchcombe is a sort of toponymic oxymoron, And knowing when one should walk in a solitary manner or collective, With a musing over the wisdom of William Hazlitt: ‘One of the pleasantest things in the world is going on a journey; but I like to go by myself. I can enjoy society in a room, but out of doors, Nature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than when alone … I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time …’ And the relative merits of cycling and walking and how it depends on the weather – as Edward Thomas wrote: ‘It was a still morning … But not until I went out could I tell that it was softly and coldly raining. Everything more than two or three fields away was hidden. Cycling is inferior in this weather, because in cycling chiefly ample views are to be seen, and the mist conceals them. You travel too quickly to notice many small things. But walking I saw every small thing one by one.’

‘But walking I saw every small thing one by one.’
And that’s what we tried to do today.
And that’s what we try to do on every walk.
And share our practice.
Hence this post.

Post-script:

Just to say thank you for your company on the walk today. Inspiring and amusing, as usual. I really value our socio/historical/psychogeographic expeditions.

St Mary’s Painswick, Empire & Colonies. Just came across this bit of info – Thomas Twining, tea merchant, was born in Painswick in 1675, and in 1706 set up his first tea shop at 216 Strand, London, which was to become the home of the famous Twinings brand.
Painswick etc.

Stuart, as always after a walk I am inspired to research…

nice description of Painswick in the early 1800s here –

http://places.wishful-thinking.org.uk/GLS/Painswick/index.html

Extract from Lewis’s Topographical Dictionary of England, 1831.

Also this about “Shepscombe Green” in the age of Ed VI
“During the insurrections in the west and other parts of the kingdom, in the reign of Edward VI., Sir Anthony Kingston, then Knight Marshall, being lord of the manor of Painswick, caused a gallows to be erected on Shepscombe Green, in this parish, for the execution of insurgents, and gave three plots of land in his lordship, since called Gallows’ lands, for the purpose of keeping in readiness a gallows, two ladders, and halters; he likewise appointed the tything-man of Shepscombe to the office of executioner, with an acre of land in the tything, as a reward for his services; a field at Shepscombe, held by the tything-man for the time being, is still known by the appellation of Hangman’s Acre.”

I suspect Shepscombe Green is Bull’s Cross, rather than the rather out of the way green in present day Sheepscombe. What do you think?

and this is a lovely page about old tracks and roads around Painswick. Fancy walking the Bisley Path from Painswick to Bisley sometime?
http://www.painswickusers.org.uk/plhs/history/histroads.htm

Summer is back today! But would yesterday’s walk have been so memorable without the mist and clouds over the hangers and Selsley?

Oral History and Walking

ONE: DISCOVERY

An invitation to participate in a seminar held by the Oral History Society in September 2017, based on some work from thirteen or so years before, got me thinking about oral history and differing walking practices. Obviously, many people record their walks – but I wanted to seek examples of projects and ideas beyond that admittedly admirable practice.

So I joined the Walking Artists Network and introduced myself with a question: I wondered if any walking artists carried out oral history projects as part of their approach. Some examples follow, but first I thought I might outline my experiences and ideas.

The work which was so well regarded was for www.irespect.net – the website seems a bit creaky now, but my perspective was that the lives of ordinary people were as necessary to any transmission of ‘Heritage’ as the lives of the powerful: a form of ‘Counter-Heritage’, in a way. I also put together a whole series of worksheets and lesson plans for schools. What I/we haven’t done is to walk the streets of Gloucester, using those testimonies and questions for walking and discussion: the great thing about devising questions with testimonies is that it stops those oral testimonies becoming inert. The questions promote engagement – that is especially so, of course, with young people.

ONE: DISCOVERY

An invitation to participate in a seminar held by the Oral History Society in September 2017, based on some work from thirteen or so years before, got me thinking about oral history and differing walking practices. Obviously, many people record their walks – but I wanted to seek examples of projects and ideas beyond that admittedly admirable practice.

So I joined the Walking Artists Network and introduced myself with a question: I wondered if any walking artists carried out oral history projects as part of their approach. Some examples follow, but first I thought I might outline my experiences and ideas.

The work which was so well regarded was for www.irespect.net – the website seems a bit creaky now, but my perspective was that the lives of ordinary people were as necessary to any transmission of ‘Heritage’ as the lives of the powerful: a form of ‘Counter-Heritage’, in a way. I also put together a whole series of worksheets and lesson plans for schools. What I/we haven’t done is to walk the streets of Gloucester, using those testimonies and questions for walking and discussion: the great thing about devising questions with testimonies is that it stops those oral testimonies becoming inert. The questions promote engagement – that is especially so, of course, with young people.

My next involvement in oral history was with my local community: writing poems and recording local history textually, as well as with a microphone. This was a new development for me: taking a recording, making a transcript, and then writing a prose-poem, which would then be read back to the contributor. These testimonies and consequent writings can be embedded within different media, so as to contribute to further group walking and further recordings.

Here is a case study: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xohBrBpr5w together with https://radicalstroud.co.uk/ls-lowry-and-local-landscape/

A search for the genius loci of my area (the Stroud Valleys: five valleys with fast flowing streams) followed. Fast flowing streams powered the water wheels of local industry – and those streams came from the plethora of springs issuing forth in the Stroud Valleys. That led to my cataloguing the names of local springs; then moving into a Blakean take on it all, whilst collecting memories of local springs too. This melding and conjoining of genres can be found at https://radicalstroud.co.uk/springs-from-research-to-blake-to-oral-history/

Since then, my practice has moved to a radical history of landscape and locality, in an EP Thompson style of rescuing the anonymous from ‘the enormous condescension of posterity’. This contributes to performative, historical walking. My approach involves research (sometimes primary sources); imaginative re-creations of first person voices based upon that research (a sort of one step beyond oral history); a planned, performative walk, with performers briefed beforehand; with factual, historical accounts, too, to act as a counter-point; followed by the recording of the walk textually and visually, with a posting on www.radicalstroud.co.uk

The website has a number of categories – accounts are placed accordingly. Here are two examples of recreated first person voices: https://radicalstroud.co.uk/the-last-words-of-thomas-jubiter/

https://radicalstroud.co.uk/i-was-baptized-josephine/

TWO: PRINCIPLES

Performative Walking and Oral History

Doors of No Return

Historic, documented, liminal places,

Not gone with the wind, but both visible and invisible,

Spaces and places in the Stroudwater hills and valleys

With messages and mementoes from a riotous past

Open doors to the truth –

A counter-narrative:

“A performative counter-narrative … a ‘guerrilla memory’”,

“Lieux de memoire, sites of history, torn away from the moment of history”

(Pierre Nora),

Memorialisation that moves beyond the empirical,

The documented, the evidenced and the historical,

To a counter-heritage, a counter-memorialisation…

For further reinterpretations,

And re-imaginings,

As we move art and monument

From object to process,

And from ‘noun to verb’,

As we create new museums of the past, present and future…

Beyond the Empirical!

Beyond the Documented!

Guerrilla Memorialisation!

THREE: CALIFORNIA

Three or four people or so replied to my question on the Walking Artists Network – here is an example of a different approach from Blake Morris, from California:

In terms of approaches to oral history, I work with the Ancient Greek technique of memory palaces to gather stories through walking. One example is my project Former Fresnans (2012-Ongoing) in which I do walks with people who formerly lived in Fresno, California, but now live elsewhere. We create a memory image for a Fresno-based memory palace after our walk, which records our story of walking together. I then take people in Fresno through the palace and show them the imaginary images and convey the stories of former Fresnans. You can find out more here, http://archive.fresnobeehive.com/2015/12/23/the-beehive-interview-blake-morris/,

FOUR: GLASGOW

TS Beale also replied from Glasgow:

She has been looking at the role of women in industrial actions and protest movements, ‘trying to recover/trouble/nuance/and otherwise mess with the “accepted” narrative about women’s roles in protest movements and industrial actions.’ There has been a walk alongside this:

https://www.facebook.com/events/131081357525702/?acontext=%7B%22action_history%22%3A%22[%7B%5C%22surface%5C%22%3A%5C%22page%5C%22%2C%5C%22mechanism%5C%22%3A%5C%22page_upcoming_events_card%5C%22%2C%5C%22extra_data%5C%22%3A[]%7D]%22%2C%22has_source%22%3Atrue%7D&__mref=mb

FIVE: ARIZONA

Post-Script

I have just seen Christopher Jagmin’s ideas for Scottsdale, Arizona; for us in Britain, a sort of mix of Mass Observation, and ‘A Day in a Life’ /‘Good Morning’ from the Beatles. I could fancy doing this as oral history/sociology – people convene; walk out; record; reconvene for a collective recording. It could also be a way of doing a new form of pub crawl – walkers allocated different pubs to record life; then reconvene for the collective fusion.

For one evening, Christopher Jagmin, Museum of Walking, and Scottsdale Public Art asks the community to join Museum of Walking to take a special historical walk around Scottsdale.

Meet at The Livery where you will receive a map of the area to get you started. Then you will be sent on your way to wander Old Town Scottsdale on a solo, self-guided journey for about 15-30 minutes.

While walking, we want you to explore and discover new experiences; say hello to a stranger, listen to the birds or a conversation taking place, take a photo of a place or person that looks interesting, walk down an alley, open a door for someone going into a building, turn off your cell phone and find a bench and enjoy the moment that you are having.

If you have been here many times you may have some memories of the place. If you are here for the first time everything is new. The hope is that you find or experience a moment to remember.

With your map, we ask that you document an experience from your walk, by marking the time, and the exact spot it happened. When you return to the Livery, we will pinpoint your experience on a map of the area, and we will also document them as historical document of Old Town.

I contacted the Museum of Walking and was delighted when Chris got back to me – see below

Hello Stuart.
The good people over at the Museum of Walking forwarded your email that you sent to them. Sorry it took a bit to get back to you, but was on vacation last week.

Your projects sound very intriguing and interesting. I wish I was closer to participate myself.

I am glad that you were interested in my project, and would be happy to talk more about my project and any thoughts. A collaboration is always possible.

A little bit about my collaboration with the Museum of Walking, and the residency that I am currently participating (I hope not too confusing). I also attached some photos of the signage that I have done for my History Project.

—————————————-

RESIDENCY: Safe and Sound
(http://www.scottsdaleindependent.com/news/artist-christopher-jagmin-sets-up-social-practice-projects-at-scottsdale-livery/amp/)

We are living at a moment in time that seems to be filled with high anxiety. I envision this livery space as a place to find comfort, make face-to-face connections, and maybe discover something interesting about ourselves.

The Livery space offers a variety of unexpected projects and opportunities to work with strangers, and express our community’s anxieties and joys without judgment.

—————————————-

P R O J E C T 1

The History Project

Historical markers are small story-telling signs that dot the landscape with sad, happy, or thrilling stories of known and forgotten heroes and villains, and the histories that were made at a specific location. These signs are the basis for a personal history project
that began in 2014.

This is a project that I have been personally working on for a few years. I memorialize important and not so
important times and experiences in my life, or notes overheard conversations and stories from other’s personal experiences. The signs are placed at the locations where these moments actually occurred.

I will ask community participants to remember a specific place (in Scottsdale) other than their home… where they had a profound, sad, joyful, or memorable experience. They would write their story and I would GPS these locations on a large map (at the Livery, and
documented later on a website) with colored pushpins to designate a felt emotion. This map of Scottsdale would show an emotional and alternate historical perspective of the city.

—————————————-

On the map that was given to participants, then follow up with documenting these “histories” on a map of the area, and a recording of these stories:
THE WALKING HISTORY PROJECT

Welcome to Sc be your first visit. Either way, there is a lot to see here and discover.

For this project I am asking you to take a walk around this area for 15 to 30 minutes, and experience new things, new sounds, new people, and maybe even discover something new about yourself.

Here are some suggestions for your journey:

– While walking… really listen. Put your phone down, and listen to the birds, the wind, or the sounds of the community. Perhaps you can have a seat on a park bench and listen to the conversations around
you.

– Why don’t you say hello to someone walking down the street. Or, hold a door open for someone entering a shop. You might want to offer a stranger a compliment, or just give up a big smile.

–  If you want a solitary experience… maybe you can walk down a street that is new to you, or cut down an alley that looks interesting (and safe!). Why don’t you take a photo of an interesting find, but instead of posting on a social media outlet, just share
with a friend in person.

My hope is that you challenge yourself and make a memory that you can tell me and your friends about.
Don’t forget to document your experience by marking the time, and the exact spot it happened on this map. When you return to the Livery, I will document this unique moment as a historical document of Old Town.

—————————————-

Wishing you well, and much luck
Christopher
— 

SIX: MORE IDEAS

PPS

Dear Stuart,

I saw your email on the wan digest mailing list and I thought I’d drop you a line. Your project sounds really fascinating!  I have been trying to use walking interviews as a way to conjure up life stories and geographical imaginations both in Northern Ireland and Spain

Gari

Garikoitz Gómez Alfaro

10-11 Pavilion Parade
School of Humanities
University of Brighton
BN2 1RA – Brighton

Hi again Stuart,

I enjoyed reading this palimpsest of yours. I wish I could escape to the West Country to join you in one of those radwalks!

There are a few other projects I know of that might be interesting to you – do you read Spanish? There’s a couple of really interesting projects in Spain, ranging from the Anarchist Route in Barcelona (with augmented reality) to derives organised by autonomist&feminist groups in Madrid.

I also wanted to draw your attention to an article by Lisa Hill, who is based at Bristol University. The first half of the article is a very useful academic review of approaches to memory/space then quickly turns into an interesting reflection about new ways of writing about life stories and memory. In addition to that, she puts those thoughts into practice in a very useful way. I hope this is useful.

Best regards,

Gari

—
Garikoitz Gómez Alfaro
Ph.D. candidate
—
10-11 Pavilion Parade
School of Humanities
University of Brighton
BN2 1RA – Brighton

SEVEN: DR HILL

I duly read Dr. Hill’s article about walking in the Forest of Dean, with Ron Beard, who provided the oral history – and here is a synopsis.

Dr. Hill spoke of the ‘spectral’: the ‘temporal disjunction’ that can happen when out walking – when landscape and mind intertwine; when memory (voluntary or involuntary) and time conjoin and disjoin, so that the ‘future-present’ is found within ‘the past’. Dr. Hill argues that different styles of narrative and writing are required to describe this mind-landscape fusion: styles that do have a common theme of disrupting authorial omniscience, however: the writer is in the landscape, not some sort of detached, positivist observer.

Hill draws on Proust, Benjamin, Derrida and Sebald as she develops her individual take on cultural geography and then applies this theoretical position to her walk with Mr. Beard.

Ron recollects and speaks of the past while out walking the Dean landscape. Dr. Hill walks, imagines, recreates, listens, records, with an acknowledgement of how important the senses are to any spectral recreations: the smell of coal dust, the whistle of a train etc.: ‘madeleine moments’.

Dr. Hill concludes by stating that she had ‘suggested that walking with memory could provide a more-than-representational perspective on the past. The act of walking creates powerful recollections because it provokes a distinct and familiar tactility with the world’: ‘the spectral … the revenant …ghostly memories … haunting memories … the haunting of the self.’

And this spectral disjunction of time will require a discourse that dispenses with linear narrative. Instead, a narrative should be one that ‘employs a subtle form of literary montage that operates by a process of juxtaposition and discontinuity – in the placing of text and image, and in the changes of topic and style.’ And this writing could well use ‘authentic’ oral history, but might also move towards the ‘fictive’, using a post-modernist multiple voice narration.

Food for thought! And reminiscent of George Orwell’s description of a ‘slum’ in Down and Out in Paris and London, where the initial ‘succession’ of yells first thing in the morning develops into a ‘variegated chorus’ later in the day. ‘Variegated chorus’ …

EIGHT: SPAIN

Talking of Orwell, Gari emailed me further:

‘Here’s the link for the project on walks and feminist memory in Madrid:
http://www.feministas.org/lugares-de-memoria-feminista-de.htmlhttp://www.feministas.org/lugares-de-memoria-feminista-de.htmlhttp://www.feministas.org/lugares-de-memoria-feminista-de.html

Many thanks to Helen Pomeroy at Archway School for the following translation:


We are a group of friends, feminist activists, who are united for the objective and in the interest of making visible and generating collective memorial spaces about the social struggles which have developed over time in the Spanish state. Also we want to contribute to the story of the emancipation of women. We want to know how we arrived here but above all we want share it and spread to others this interest. This is why we have created this group.

We believe that feminist story is collective, historical, rich, diverse and multiple. A memory which for the most part is not part of any textbook nor in any official stories in history, nor is it reflected in the streets of our city or our museums. It is a memory which is found nowhere, a memory which remains open and active in the heads and in the hearts of those people who are given to the moment of seeking alternative reconstruction who seek to transform personal sentiment to collective and public meaning.


and here the one for the barcelona project, which is probably less relevant as it isn’t directly related to oral history but might be interesting due to the possibilities the technology used offers:
http://cierto.org/pdf/tactical_tourism.pdfhttp://cierto.org/pdf/tactical_tourism.pdfhttp://cierto.org/pdf/tactical_tourism.pdf

NINE: TIM INGOLD

Also, I can’t believe I forgot to mention Ingold’s introduction to “Ways of Walking”: https://quote.ucsd.edu/sed/files/2014/09/Ingold-Ways-of-Walking-Introduction1.pdfhttps://quote.ucsd.edu/sed/files/2014/09/Ingold-Ways-of-Walking-Introduction1.pdf  ‘

Again, I duly read this and here is my synopsis:

This ethnographical overview provides a salutary lesson, with a global perspective on walking. It takes us away from a European and/or urban textual modernity, to walking as a social activity – footprints interwoven for some cultures with the transmission of ‘knowledge’, storytelling and oral history. It may be time to resurrect such an approach here in this country – ‘walking’ can become over intellectualised and dry as dust academic; it’s time to bring back the vernacular, when occasion demands.

And that’s what I am trying to do with the writing of a DIY guide to performative walking for my locality – writing with a voice that appeals to everyone. The hope is that there will be a widening collective sharing of experience, beyond the usual suspects.

More of that in the future – Christmas, in fact.

TEN: TOBY BUTLER

Almost finally, now …

Gari also drew my attention to the Memoryscape work of Toby Butler along the bank of the Thames (oral history in the landscape, rather than in museums or as transcripts) and an article at http://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/memoryscape/

I tried to contact Professor Butler but he has left UEL and they have no forwarding email address.

ELEVEN: DR CORDER

Dr Kate Corder also contacted me about HOW (Heathrow Orchards Walks):

When I was planning my HOW events, I observed old maps of the Heathrow area and delved in to histories and archives. From 2014-2016 there were approximately 19 HOWs, three of which were not made public, but I had arranged to talk to people about the area history on route. Oral history of the area was an ongoing dialogue before, after and during the HOW event. Participants spoke to historians, activists and volunteers about the regional history met on route during the event. Even though I am not currently doing more HOW events, I am still working on things connected to HOW, (at the moment two publication essays and my work is included in the Alternative Document group exhibition touring to Stoke, Sydney, Bath and Brighton in the next year). 

TWELVE: SAPPERTON TUNNEL AND THE CANAL

As regards the Stroud area, our next performative walk, recording and podcasting will be on October 7th, when, inter alia, Uta Baldauf will perform a piece about legging through Sapperton Tunnel on the Thames and Seven Canal, right there in front of the tunnel. https://radicalstroud.co.uk/i-was-baptized-josephine/

This piece is an exercise in oral history of sorts: a first person voice of guerrilla memorialization that challenges historical orthodoxy and heritage. This recording of a transgressive account (‘Presentism’?) runs alongside (albeit in a parallel universe) official recordings on the Stroudwater and Thames and Severn canals.

But ours are the invented voices of oral history – authentic and valid in a different type of way from the voices of canal restoration.

Beyond the Empirical,

Beyond the Documented:

Guerrilla Memorialization.

On the way back on the train, Uta and others asked me about what happened to Joe/Josephine. I explained that I had invented her/him.

Uta turned round and looked at me:

’But, I felt she was a real person when I spoke her words. To me, she was a real person. I think she did exist. She did exist.’

https://www.facebook.com/100009938981619/videos/pcb.2372736622951837/534860346855260/?type=3&theater

https://www.facebook.com/100009938981619/videos/pcb.2372736622951837/534860333521928/?type=3&theater

Springs: from Research to Blake to Oral History

Richardson: Wells and Springs of Gloucestershire, HMSO,1930 Introduction:

  1. “Between Dursley and Dudbridge few springs issue; some of the more reliable are used for the supply of Coaley and King’s Stanley…”

  2. “In the Nailsworth, Horsley and Avening Valleys…copious springs break out, such as at Gig Mill, Millbottom, the Coldwell Spring, those at the Midland Fishery in the Horsley Valley, in the grounds of “Pensile”, and in the vicinity of Longfords Mills up the Avening Valley.”

  3. “Up the Frome Valley, above Stroud, is the powerful Clerk’s Flour Mill Spring…the springs at Bliss Mills, the “Black Gutter,” etc., and the considerable store of water in the Cotteswold Sands which furnished the original supply (by means of wells) of the Stroud Water Company.”

  4. “If it had not been for the presence of the Fullers’ Earth, the greater part of the Cotteswold upland would have been void of villages, isolated farms and cottages…Kingscote, Nymphsfield, Avening, Minchinhampton, Sapperton, Edgeworth, Chalford, Bisley…”; the juxtaposition of Fullers’ Earth and the Great Oolite has been a fundamental determinant of settlement patterns.

Richardson: Wells and Springs of Gloucestershire, HMSO,1930 Introduction:

  1. “Between Dursley and Dudbridge few springs issue; some of the more reliable are used for the supply of Coaley and King’s Stanley…”

  2. “In the Nailsworth, Horsley and Avening Valleys…copious springs break out, such as at Gig Mill, Millbottom, the Coldwell Spring, those at the Midland Fishery in the Horsley Valley, in the grounds of “Pensile”, and in the vicinity of Longfords Mills up the Avening Valley.”

  3. “Up the Frome Valley, above Stroud, is the powerful Clerk’s Flour Mill Spring…the springs at Bliss Mills, the “Black Gutter,” etc., and the considerable store of water in the Cotteswold Sands which furnished the original supply (by means of wells) of the Stroud Water Company.”

  4. “If it had not been for the presence of the Fullers’ Earth, the greater part of the Cotteswold upland would have been void of villages, isolated farms and cottages…Kingscote, Nymphsfield, Avening, Minchinhampton, Sapperton, Edgeworth, Chalford, Bisley…”; the juxtaposition of Fullers’ Earth and the Great Oolite has been a fundamental determinant of settlement patterns.

  5. “Some of the springs thrown up by the Fuller’s Earth are very strong: for example…Seven Springs, Bisley; Cherington Springs, near Avening…”

  6. The 1930 book mentions the work of JH Taunton, who reckoned that the River Frome and its tributaries drained about 79 square miles: most of the water “carried off by the Frome is derived from springs issuing from the Cotteswold Sands”; a much smaller amount “is derived from springs thrown out by the Fullers’ Earth…” The author then listed the chief tributaries of the Frome: “…the stream that rises at Clipperwell, Holy Brook, Toadsmoor Brook, Slad Brook, Painswick Stream, River Avon(or Aven) with its tributary the Horsley Brook, Stanley and Downton streams; while in this connection the group of springs known as “the Chalford Springs” must not be overlooked.”

  7. Fisher in his “Notes and Recollections of Stroud” gives further insight into wells and springs: “Near the centre of “The Cross” is a deep well of water, in which formerly stood the public pump.” Ex-mayor, John Marjoram says, in corroboration, that there are springs beneath the police station (these were discovered when the foundations were laid for the present building, he says). Fisher goes on to talk of “…the spring called Gainey’s Well, which rises in a hollow of Gainey’s Leaze on the northern side of Stroud-hill.” He further mentions “various springs which rise in Kilminster’s estate…situated near the top of Stroud-hill…” In a wider context, Fisher says that “the water in this neighbourhood, though perhaps sufficient, is not abundant. The dip of the strata of the Cotteswolds is from the north-west to the south-east – the direction of the valley of the Thames – which, consequently, receives the larger supply of the Cotteswold water-shed; whilst Stroud and the other smaller valleys receive only what flows from the…western face of the hills…” He goes on to talk about the fissures in the rocks and that “Hemlock’s Well is a public spring of water, flowing out of the south side, as Gainey’s Well does out of the north…both of them from the same causes, and both being on nearly the same level at the junction of the lias clay with the porous oolite rocks. But the springs in Kilminster’s farm rise from beneath the upper oolite rocks, at the junction with a clay bed of the fuller’s earth formation. Hemlock’s Well lies on the east side of the private road…leading down from Lower-street, near the Castle, to Arundel’s mill…It probably took its name from the common hemlock…which grew near it, and are found on the rocky eminences of the neighbourhood…About sixty yards farther down in the hill side, is an old stone cistern which was formerly supplied from the same source, and was called Nanny Croker’s Well. Tradition says that a person of that name hanged herself on a tree which grew near this cistern” but the reason why has been taken by “Time…and drops it into Oblivion’s pool.”

  8. Avening: Cherington Springs (Gillhays Bottom 897994,); River Avon (Aven); “Strong springs issue … in the south side of the Avon valley between Longfords and Iron Mills. The spring seen in the stone-sided opening in the road in front of the west face of Longfords Mill comes out of the bank to the south…Another strong spring issues…some 60 yds. to the west and flows along a water course that discharges into the “canal” that feeds the Iron Mills mill-pond.”

  9. Bisley-with-Lypiatt: Bisley or Seven Springs; “They are the source of a tributary of the Toadsmoor Brook, which rises in a spring…in Blanche’s Bank below Stancombe Farm.” There are also springs in Lypiatt Park, Middle Lypiatt, Lower Lypiatt…and below Bussage Churchyard. Nashend, Eastcombe, Bournes Green (“which is the source of a brook that joins the Frome below Baker’s Pool”), Oakridge, Oakridge Lynch (“likewise the source of a small stream”), Tunley, Daneway, Waterlane, Battlescombe, Througham, Slad Farm, Calfway Farm, Stancombe Farm, Fennell’s Farm, Ferris Court…are all situate…where water is obtainable from shallow wells or springs…Hill House and Snakeshole which give rise to a stream that flows down the Horns Valley that is joined by a streamlet rising below the Heavens.” The Slad Brook comes down the Dillay Farm valley and flows below Snow’s Farm and Steanbridge Farm, and southwards through the pond at Steanbridge. Below Snow’s Farm the Slad Brook is joined by a brook coming down the “Piedmont Valley”. The brooks derive their supplies from springs issuing from the base of the Cotteswold Sands.” These brooks flowed with an average of about 300,000 gallons a day according to a fine summer’s day gauging in 1927.

  10. Brimscombe: “There is a good spring running to waste into the canal almost opposite the Polytechnic and there are three smaller springs also running to waste into the canal between the Polytechnic and Bourne Lock.”

  11. Cainscross: Derryhay Public Spring “situate some 200 yds. east by north of the Chapel, Ebley…The water issues from the gravel bed, flows continuously, and,…runs to waste in the Stroudwater Canal. Westrip is dependent on wells…and springs issuing from, the base of the Cotteswold Sands. The Ruscombe Brook flows along the eastern side of the parish, through ponds near Cainscross Brewery, and discharges into the Frome.” The Brewery use wells from springs at “Puckshole, a hamlet between Paganhill and Randwick.”

  12. Chalford: “Rack Hill is supplied partly by…springs in the bottom, such as Tankard’s Spring. Numerous small springs are thrown out…in France Lynch, the strongest being that south-east of the church. The water from these springs runs to waste down Dimmel’s Dale into the Frome at Hell Corner. A fairly good stream rises at Old Neighbouring (Chalford Lynch) and flows down the valley past Chalford Hill Schools…a good stream comes out of the north side of the valley near the Queen’s Head Hotel and is taken under the canal (after having been joined by another stream under Whareham’s Hill) and discharges into the Frome.”

  13. Horsley: “Top level springs rising at Nupend feed dip wells in the main street…The Be-Thankful Fountain in the Horsley road is supplied by top level springs, which ran feebly in 1921, situate 1/3 mile S.E. by E. of All Saints Church, Shortwood, near Willow Cottage…There is a dip and a tank from which a pipe is laid to supply Willow Cottage. On the right hand side of the path south of Coldwell is a dip with a circular opening…There are some useful springs down Bartonend Lane.”

  14. Kings Stanley: “Middleyard…is supplied…from a spring in “The Combs” (as the comb between Pen and Selsley Hills is called), and Coldwell…The stream running through the village from Huntley’s Spring is polluted by drainage.”

  15. Leonards Stanley: “…there is a spring near St. Swithin’s Church which may be drawn upon by anyone who wants water and there are copious springs at Severn Waters – the water from all of which…runs to waste into the Frome.”

  16. Minchinhampton: “In times past Michinhampton was partly dependent on…Well Hill Spring.” Lots of fissures in the Oolite here – commonly used for “Any liquid, however contaminated”; made illegal “But at the time of the Minchinhampton epidemic (of typhoid fever in 1844) it was an almost universal practice”; author thinks it “wonderful” that there is only one other record of a local epidemic “except a small one in 1758.”…”Gatcombe Park is supplied by a spring. Bubblewell (Forwood), springs thrown out by the Fullers’ Earth, is used by those living in the vicinity. Four or five springs (strong ones) rising in the neighbourhood…above Springfield used to supply Forwood Brewery and the overflow went into a trough by the side of the road to Minchinhampton. Box is supplied by…Troublewell Spring which furnishes a good supply…Spriggs Well, near Rose Cottage, Amberley, used to furnish the supply for the ancient camp. Burleigh…a spring in the hamlet is largely used. In the Golden Valley a large number of springs – the Chalford Springs of literature – issue…the chief of which are “The Bubbler”, “The Black Gutter”, and the spring which is the main source of the Stroud Water Company’s supply at Clerk’s Mill. The Black Gutter…”is the biggest feeder of the Thames and Severn Canal and is fed by about twenty springs rising under the railway bank.” The author then goes on to talk about the Stroud Water Company and mentions two springs: “Clerk’s Flour Mill Spring (main supply)…comes out of the south side of the valley and is conducted through a culvert to a pumping-station beside the mill- pond. Into this sump discharges water brought through…a pipe from the Bliss Mill springs…About 30,000 gallons per hour are pumped…and there is an overflow into the mill-pond of about 1,000,000 gallons per day. There is another spring which is not now used, also coming out of the south side of the valley…The overflow from the “Black Gutter” is conveyed by an iron pipe and discharges into the millpond.”

  17. Miserden: “Miserden village is supplied by an undertaking provided about 1920, by F.N.H. Wills. The source of supply is a spring thrown out …towards the top of the steep valley side facing Bulls Bank Common…Before the present supply…the village obtained its water mainly from a spring in the bank east of the church.”

  18. Nailsworth: “Springs issue from two horizons, from (1) the basement beds of the Great Oolite…known a the “high” or “top level springs”; and (2) at or near the base of the Cotteswold Sands known as the “bottom” or “low level springs.” The water of the top level springs is hard. The springs are usually collected by means of stone drains…Examples of private supplies from top-level springs are those at The Hollies, Rockness House and Ringfield Farm. Good top-level springs are those (1) in the hillside south of All Saints Church, Shortwood…and another which furnishes a supply to Hillier’s Bacon Curing Factory; (2) above Rockness…(3) near Rowden. The water issuing from the Cotteswold Sands …has a very constant temperature, summer and winter of 42 degrees. The water that issues from the Sands has percolated through the Inferior Oolite. The Oolite exposed in quarries “steams” in frosty weather and all the year round “musty smelling air” rises from “lissens” in it. This steaming has gained the expression, often used locally, of “hot rock” and of houses being situate on “hot rock.” Notable springs issuing from the Cotteswold Sands are:- (1) near Newmarket Mills (demolished). Water from a spring here is pumped to Hillier’s Bacon Curing Factory; (2) at Springhill, the water of which is conveyed to…Axpills and Cossack Square…Day’s Mill, and The Fountain and Lloyds Bank…(3) at Gig Mill…(4) in Millbottom. The Millbottom Spring is a very copious spring used by those living in the vicinity but otherwise running to waste. In the bottom at Harleywood where by the path-side close to the southern end of the mill-pond is “Sweetwater Spring; (5) at the bend of the road between Holcombe Mill and Weighbridge Inn on the Avening road, a small but constant spring; (6) that used to supply Holcombe House and The Hermitage. Care requires to be exercised in determining springs in this district; many so-marked springs on the 6-inch map are “spout-springs” and springs originated from leaky or disconnected old drains, draining clay-slips.”

  19. Painswick: “…public springs, such as that at the bottom of Vicarage Street (under the Vernon’s boundary wall) and St. Tabatha’s Well in Tibbiwell Lane…spring at Cherry Hill Cottages, Spoonbed Hill…Slad hamlet…a spring near Laurel Villa…Cud Well is a spring (somewhat feeble)…At 300yds. N. by W. of Steanbridge is a spring…and at 150 yds. to the N. by W. several springs…the southernmost of which, it is said, “never fails”. There is a useful spring at the back of the Star Inn.”

  20. Randwick: “The village owes its supply to the generosity of the late Mr. Carpenter, and derives it from a spring at Long Court…about 100 yds. W.N.W. of the fish pond in the grounds.”

  21. Rodborough: “Numerous springs issue from at or near the base of the Sands in the hill-side. The most notable are:- Stanfields Spring, which…ran well…for 25 years but went dry in 1921; King’s Court…which is a good spring and available for public use; Court Bank, in the Stroud Valley, some 500 yds. north-east by north of Rodborough Fort; and about 500yds. east by north of Rodborough Manor.”

  22. Stonehouse: “ Formerly a number of properties were supplied by an overflow from the Verney Spring which issues…at a little below the 300 ft. contour in a hollow some 300 yds. north-east of the Stonehouse Brick and Tile Works. Another spring issuing from the same geological horizon east of the Glen is used by the inhabitants of Woodcock Lane…”

  23. Stroud: Similar to Nailsworth, there are “Low Level” springs “ from at or near the base of the Cotteswold Sands, from which they are thrown out by the Upper Lias clay and “High Level” which issue forth “from at or near the base of the Great Oolite, from which are thrown out by the Fullers’ Earth. A gravel bed rests on the Middle Lias and forms a terrace along the right bank of the Frome from Gannicox west-wards into Cainscross parish.” The author then goes on to talk of “The Stroud Hill Supply is derived from some eighty shallow springs thrown out by the Fullers’ Earth between the Bisley Road reservoirs…and Sydenham’s Farm, and collected into…iron pipes (via below Kilminster, Fennel’s and Anstead Farms)”; 2.6 miles long with a yield varying from 15,000 gallons a day in summer to 200,000 gallons per day in the winter months. The author then addresses Gainey’s Well: a low level spring with a yield varying from 60,000 gallons per day in summer to 110,000 per day in winter. There is also Farmhill Well, “in a field to the east of Farmhill Park…water was encountered at 24ft. down and it is said that there is never less than 12ft. of water in the well. There are a number of springs. Mostly small, in the District, issuing from at or near the base of the Cotteswold Sands.” The author then looks at the Stroud Brewery – “This brewery is adjacent to the GWR Station and obtains its supply from springs and wells at some distance.” The writer concludes by looking at “Boring at Callowell.- Borehole in garden of Plough Inn. Made 1925.”

  24. Thrupp: “Good springs thrown out by the Fullers’ Earth are those below The Horns and Lower Lypiatt, while a good spring issues from the base of the Cotteswold Sands above the old Brimscombe Brewery.”

  25. Whiteshill: “There are three useful springs in Ruscombe, namely (1) Near the Chapel; (2)…at the sharp bend of the road north of Ludlow Green; (3) the “Double Spout…in the dip between Ludlow Green and Primrose Hill, which yields more water than any in the neighbourhood and is the source of Ruscombe Brook.”

  26. Woodchester: “…many of the cottagers draw their water from “spout springs”, in particular the “Ram Pitch Spring,” near the Ram Inn, and “Turner’s Spring” at the top of Frogmarsh Lane.”

Local Spring Time

Liminal shrines: those strange, trickling gateways

To chthonic places, real or imagined;

Mythopoeic underworlds of mystery,

Hades with imprisoned Persephone,

Or a metaphor for hope and wisdom,

Or a deliquescent, dripping staff of life,

(Or Limestone, Fullers’ Earth and Cotteswold Sands),

Quicksilver mercurial alchemy,

A continuous flow of constant change,

One sip of which will switch your sense of time

(Drinking rainwater that dropped who knows when),

Like star-shine from ancient constellations,

A laughing trick all that slakes and comforts,

Yet mocks the tension of the present tense,

A spring-tide clock whose hands revolve backwards,

With messages from another aeon.

A Cabinet of Curiosities

The Age of Enlightenment

Gave birth to the Collector:

Rational, assiduous;

Naming and classifying;

Listing and cataloguing;

Creating and displaying

A Cabinet of Curiosities;

Flora and fauna pin-holed;

Rocks and fossils pot-holed;

God and Darwin side by side.

So, here is our cabinet,

A Blakean vision unconfined

By taxonomy’s constructs,

Escaping from the test-tubes,

Dripping from the tight-locked drawers,

Undermining Horatio’s philosophy,

With dreams of another way to be.

The Truth About Springs

The word “Truth”, just like the name of John Keats,

Is writ upon the ever changing waters;

And so, our systematic search for springs,

The cataloguing and naming of parts,

Resembles that of the alchemist,

Seeking out the philosopher’s stone.

But how can we confine the mercurial?

Those thin blue lines that disappear,

With culverts, pipes, wells and drainage,

Or wander with the whim of nature,

Through seasons of capricious rainfall:

So, just like Truth, springs are protean,

And our labours are a metaphor

For the half-wisdom of science and logic,

“There are more things in heaven and earth than

Are dreamed of in your philosophy, Horatio.”

Jacquetta Hawkes, in her wonderful book, “A Land”, first published in the year of my birth, 1951, looked at the relationship between names and landscape:
“There is a sense in which the ordering of speech has a direct effect also upon the land. Names could be attached to all those features of the countryside that attracted… attention or were of significance. Mountains, rivers, springs…Above all, places associated with ancestral spirits, gods and heroes. Place names are among the things that link men (sic) most intimately with their territory. As the generations pass on these names from one to the other, successive tongues wear away the syllables just as water and wind smooth the rocks; so they…perhaps lose their meaning, yet grow more and more closely attached to the land itself…A geologist finds proof of past life in fossils, an archaeologist in objects…an etymologist looks instead to place names…”

Flora

Richard Mabey recounts the story

When Meux’s Horseshoe Brewery

Bored a well, over a thousand feet,

Into the five hundred million year old

Subterranean Cambrian rocks,

Below Tottenham Court Road.

And there, on Old Stone Age strata,

Were fossilised weeds, common today:

Knotgrass, creeping buttercup, chickweed, mare’s tail.

So, as we stride across our Stroud Valleys,

Ancient, abyssal depths beneath our soles,

With water coursing its way to spring lines,

Those flowers you saw by the side of the spring,

Might just be the children of those that stood

When the rains fell from unrecorded skies.

The Social History of Springs

So what do memories tell us

About how springs affect us?

When you think about it, springs and spring lines

Are fundamental reasons why we are here,

Why we are where we are when we are,

Yet the meanings we give to these life-sources,

Have been endlessly mediated and diverted

By countless culverts, pipes, utilities,

Waterworks, reservoirs and construction;

Most of us are understandably unaware,

Ignorant and unconscious of the power beneath our feet,

Yet the fragments that we glimpse reveal to us

How the issue of the underworld

Permeates our thoughts, minds and bodies,

In misunderstood ways, even today.

Memories may tell us even more:

The springs in Kingscourt, at The Street,

Helped make the path of true love run smooth,

Recalled Elsie Close, born 1903,

(Whose grannie used to be the village mid-wife)

Courted by Jack, bringing spring water

On Sunday nights to Elsie’s mum,

All ready for Washday Monday;

But springs could also roughen paths to the future,

When builders discovered them beneath planned foundations,

As in Oak Drive, near Rodborough Fields,

Or beneath Iceland in Stroud,

Or beneath the top of the High Street,

Where springs and an old reservoir by the police station,

Still cause subsidence even today.

Then there are the springs of the suburbs,

Sometimes culverted, sometimes disappearing,

But reappearing and running continuously somewhere,

As in Rodborough Avenue and Chandos Drive;

Or there might be memories of playing in the spring

Down by Bagpath,

Drinking its crystal clear stone cold waters,

Growing watercress, pumpkins and marrows

In spring-line beds,

Where Mr Strange would bathe his bruises,

After playing football for Thrupp FC,

While old Mr Turner yoked two large churns

On his shoulders for his daily supply,

Even though most of the houses in Butterow

Had spring-fed wells by then;

But mains water then came to Butterow,

The sign went up at the spring:
“Unfit for Drinking” –

“We never took any notice of that and continued to drink

And play in the spring for as long as I can remember.”

Then there was the spring in Field Road,

On the way up to Stroud Hospital,

And the spring in Kitesnest Lane

Where pumpkins and marrows were grown,

Meanwhile the springs beneath Fishers Way

Still sometimes reappear and run across the roads,

While the spring still rises in Gastrells Lane,

And the springs in the Slad Valley

Still show with their summer-time

Dark green clumps of dark green grass.

Mrs Arthur of Kingscourt remembers her local springs,

Still being used in the 1940s,

While in her grandfather’s day, men bore a yoke,

Carrying the water back up the steep hill to Bowl Top Cottage,

While over at Ruscombe, the men bore the yokes from the spring too,

She thinks the spring at Stanfields may now be in someone’s garden,

But water from the spring at Selsley West,

By Middleyard, is still used by some people today;

Then there are the springs in All Saints Road

That fed wells at the back of the terrace,

One now flows in a conduit beneath the footpath,

But its laughter can still be heard in the drains

At the corner of All Saints Road and Springfield Road,

And then when you call in at Uplands Road Post Office,

It never stops, not even in drought or deep frozen winter,

And sometimes floods basements and cellars;

Then there are tales of wells in Stroud,

Hemlock Well and wells at The Field,

Hemlock Well, at the junction of Field Road

And the old Hemlockwell Lane –

The water supply comes through a higher well,

Once called Nanny Crocker’s cistern,

Legend has it that Nanny was hanged there as a witch,

But the waters poured in down the hill

To the water wheels at Arundel Mill,

While Gainey’s Well, whose 18th century wooden pipes

Were plugged with much needed kneaded bread,

Issued forth in Gainey’s Leaze,

While there had been a well where the roads fork

In front of the old Co-op, now laundrette (how fitting),

Since the early 18th century; a reservoir would follow;

This past subterranean reservoir

Still affects our mundane walking and shopping on the streets of Stroud,

TO BE CONTINUED AS MORE MEMORIES ARE RECORDED

John Clare: “There once were springs, where daisies’ silver studs

Like sheets of snow on every pasture spread;”

Dear Sir or Madam,

I was born and raised in Butterow near Stroud and well remember the spring at the bottom of the hill towards Bagpath, when we were children we used to play in the spring and drink the crystal clear water which gushed from a large pipe into a large basin. The water was always stone cold even in the height of summer, the overflow from the spring ran under the road and down a steep slope in which my father had water cress beds, also some of the villagers grew pumpkins and marrows by the side of the beds, my father played football for the THRUPP TEAM and my mother told me that my dad would stand in the spring on his way home to take the bruises out of his legs.

I well remember old Mr. Turner going by our house with a yoke over his shoulders with two large churns each side to collect his daily supply of water from the spring. Most of the houses in Butterow had wells including our house which had a pump in the back kitchen so the wells must have been supplied by springs. When mains water was supplied to BUTTEROW a sign was put on the spring saying that it was unfit for drinking. We never took any notice of that and continued to drink and play in the spring for as long as I can remember. I also drank from the spring in FIELD ROAD on the way up to Stroud Hospital and also there was a spring in KITESNEST LANE LIGHTPILL opposite ORCHARD VIEW ROAD where someone grew pumpkins and marrows by the side of the spring. The field on which our houses are built in FISHERS WAY and CHANDOS ROAD as covered in springs which sometimes reappear and run across the roads. Also in the valley in GASTRELS LANE there is a spring still running at the side of the road.

I hope this letter has helped you in your research on springs in the district as it brings back happy memories of my childhood.

Mr. Strange

I think there are quite a lot near us, in and near The Street ( we are hoping we are not on the spring line to the extent there’s one under our house!). There’s an ‘official’ one in the Street, not far from Zara’s house. We could show it to you. It’s for the public to use (though not everyone agrees). When a lovely old lady next door to us died in 1995 we put up a little plaque there in her honour. She was called Elsie Close (née Harris or Vick, I forget now). She was born in 1903 and lived in Kingscourt most of her life. Her granny had been the village midwife! (unofficially, of course, in those days). In order to ingratiate himself with Elsie’s parents when he was courting her, Jack, her sweetheart, would go to fetch water from the spring on Sunday evenings ready for Monday washing. They eventually married and had two daughters, both of whom have died. Jack died in 1979. I have a marvellous photo of him and Elsie taken by the SNJ photographer on the occasion of their Golden Wedding.

Carole Oosterhousen

Rodborough:

Bob Tiley and Oak Drive – they had intended to build individual houses there but it proved to be too expensive as the buildings needed such strong and deep foundations because of the springs there; so they built flats instead of houses. What seems to be a sociological or economic decision has in fact been determined by subterranean springs.

Tony says the spring behind his house runs down to the last house in Rodborough Avenue; springs have been culverted around this part of Rodborough but he is sure they run continuously. Giles Diggle has just had a spring appear in his garden in Chandos Road after one nearby was culverted; the impact of the wet summer, 2012.

sorry – forgot to mention the springs! You will almost certainly be aware of the springs along the Slad valley below Summer street. When we lived at Lower Woodlands in the Slad Road we could see the darker green grass clumps opposite our house very clearly in the summertime. We also discovered the hard way the seam of Fuller’s earth that runs around the Slad valley about two-thirds of the way up, behind Swift’s Hill – it made some footpaths extremely treacherous.

Are you including wells? There were a few on The Field estate in back yards, and I have an as-yet unidentified death of a man digging a well when it collapsed on two workers. I am trying hard to establish that it was on William Cowle’s own land but the Board of Health minutes reported in the newspaper are very tight-lipped (so since he was Chairman I might be right!).

Marion

Have just found your request for info. about local springs, there is one in the field below us at bottom of Gastrells which my paternal grandmother’s family used 1880 onwards. For many years she retained the yoke with which her brothers fetched water back to Bowl Top cottage. The Village Spring at Ruscombe has a nameplate just round the corner from the chapel on the left hand side. There is a lovely old photo of children fetching water in Victorian times using a yoke. There is a spring in The Street at Kingscourt, rather overgrown now but it was used in 1940′s as was the one at Stanfields (now in someone’s garden I suspect). People still collect water from a spring in Selsley West near Middleyard. South Woodchester has one just up above The Ram. In Stroud, Spring Lane has Hemlock Well now barred up for obvious reasons.

Maureen Arthur.

Parts of the High Street seem to be gently subsiding at the top end outside the Medieval Building! There are said to be lots of springs around the area of the Police station (- the (reservoir used to be just there) & the water is said to wash down underneath the road. In the 1980s when we were working on the Med Building, the road actually fell into a huge cavern!

Iceland had planned to have an underground car park, but it was said to be too expensive & difficult to build because of the water.

Anne Mackintosh

The All Saints Road spring used to feed wells at the back of the terrace of three houses built in 1860. The west house of the three does not have a cellar and we think that it would have flooded too much. The spring is now conduited under the communal footpath which runs down the west side of the terrace and then under All Saints Road where you can hear it flowing all seasons by the drain at the corner of All Saints Road and Springfield Road and again just outside Uplands post office. The spring never dries not even in the deep freeze two winters ago. There may be other springs feeding that drain from higher up in All Saints Road – I am not sure.

There is a second run of water into the bank of All Saints Road which moves occasionally – the bottom two houses cellars flooded badly in July 2007 never having been wet before and recent work on Thompson Road, parallel to All Saints road, moved those springs again and again the basements flooded.

The older people are the ones to talk to as they have such long memories of water movement in the roads and it is a very sensitive issue.

For instance the building opposite the Uplands Post office had a well in its grounds. When the cottage was redeveloped and upgraded that well had concrete put into it. The water then worked its way down the hillside affecting other buildings and seeped out into the walls of Slad Mills, just where the Mill touches Slad Road, necessitating a lot of extra financial repairs.

You will never finish this project – there are so many thousands of spring stories – fabulous and well done for doing this. I think it’s really important for people to know where the water runs under their houses!

Camilla

Steve – Leaky the Plumber – lives in Chandos Road – can always hear the sound of running water when he is awake at night.
We had lunch yesterday with neighbours who are involved in our FEWC research and live at one of the cottages that originally belonged to The Field mansion – probably 17thC certainly 18thC. The Field was the name of the house (yes it is a real nuisance) originally built possibly as early as the 1300s but certainly there in 1560 when it was bought, along with its mill and hillside, from John Huckvale by Richard Arundell. The house itself had a face lift in the 1800s but some of the original outbuildings are still visible, and the two adjoining cottages are fully functioning.

They have wondered for a long time how the original house got its water supply, and of course I thought of you and your research. The house was built on the only flat bit of the hillside, halfway up, with its mill in the valley on the river. Would it help to know the altitude? Here it is on an 1885 OS map:

They did tell the tale of a spring-supplied house up at the top of The Heavens that only recently went on mains water, and Hemlock Well is of course just at the town end of Bowbridge Lane, but surely there must have been a water supply nearer than that?

No rush – just another little jigsaw piece.

kind regards
Marion