Stuart Butler – Page 33 – Radical Stroud

Springs: from Research to Blake to Oral History

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

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

“Between Dursley and Dudbridge few springs issue; some of the more reliable are used for the supply of Coaley and King’s Stanley…”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.
“Some of the springs thrown up by the Fuller’s Earth are very strong: for example…Seven Springs, Bisley; Cherington Springs, near Avening…”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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…”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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 18^th 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 18^th 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

Bristol: Clichéd Football; Radical History

Temple Meads via Swindon, 14 quid?
Temple Meads via Gloucester, only 7?
Well, that meant a ride through the warehouse edgelands,
And the buddleia rusting railway lines to Gloucester
(‘YES MATE’, as it said under the bridge),
But there was time enough for a trip down football’s memory lane
With a Swindon fan at Stroud:
‘No football at Ebley, now, look.
Nothin’.
Nothin’ at Ebley anymore’
I said I was off to watch Derby at Bristol City,
And he recalled
Swindon beating Derby one nil,
November 5th 1968:
‘Best Bonfire Night I ever had.’
We talked of FGR:
‘You be careful at Forest Green on Friday.
I know about 200 Swindon fans will be at the FGR end.’
‘I know mate. I’ll be one of them. With my red and white scarf.’
He looked at me with new and slightly befuddled admiration.
He slapped me on the back:
‘Fair play on ya, mate. Fair play.’

I watched the world go by at Gloucester for a while,
A goods train trundled through:
60091, Barry Needham,
Named after a coal train controller:
Barry died tragically in a railway accident,
Giving his time freely, on a day off –
His mates paid for the nameplate …

I read some Ian Sinclair through the Severn Vale
(Old trainspotting terrain with my brother),
Thinking I could divine Ian Sinclair’s style:
Minute description; simile; recent fact; historical fact;
Slightly occult reference; minute description …
OMG,
Is this what we all do?

We rattled through the suburbs of Bristol
To reach Temple Meads,
Middle class pasty at Harts,
Then a ferry to Hotwells, by the Nova Scotia,
To walk past the beer-fuelled Derby fans:
‘We are Derby, Super Derby, Super Derby, Super Rams’,
And so a tryst at the John Atyeo statue,
A sight of police with guns (Parsons Green),
And an open end to end game of two halves
(‘May the best team win!’),
0-1 after 45 minutes,
4-1 after 90 –
Sometimes the clichéd games are the best:
There’s a reason for a cliché, isn’t there?

The next day I walked past St. Mary Redcliffe
(Coleridge and Chatterton and Old Rowley –
And bells ringing to celebrate the defeat of a slavery abolition bill),
Past The Ship and Colston Parade,
To reach the Docks, the MSHED,
And the Bristol Radical History Festival
(‘Countering Colston’):
A wonderfully vibrant day where kindred spirits,
Like minded activists, historians, performers, walkers,
Artists, speakers, poets, writers and puppeteers
Presented a different view of the past:
History from below,
Authentic history,
History that goes beyond the clichéd:
For while a cliché might suffice
When describing a train journey,
Or a football match –
Real and Radical History
Takes you beyond the cliché of Heritage:
It cleanses your perception,
It opens doors,
To momentarily extinguish
‘The guttering candle’
Of clichéd Heritage;
Then illuminates the darkness
With a Captain Swing blaze of truth.

Bristol Doors Open Days

Bristol Doors Open Days
The Merchants’ Hall
indocilis pauperiem pati
‘One who cannot learn to bear poverty’

What did I learn about our ‘Island Story’
On a squally September rain-swept day,
At the Merchants’ Hall, and Redcliffe Caves?
Well, we formed an orderly queue at the Hall,
Bantering with the pinstriped beadle,
Before our guide escorted us to the hall,
Where our talk began.

It was informative, in a manner of speaking:
The chandeliers are cleaned every two years!
Sixty-eight people can sit at this table!
When a speaker addresses an audience here,
The chairs are moved to face the front!
Princess Anne likes the Merchant Venturers!
Here are pictures of the docks in the 18th century!
(No mention yet…)
Royal Charters galore!
Portraits galore!
One day there will be a woman on the wall!
And a female ‘Master’ of the Society,
And she shalt have the title of ‘Master’!
The voice went on about the Society’s charitable enterprises,
I glanced at a couple of their annual reports:
‘New Schools’ Trust Offers Diversity’
(Conventional trope of girl in a science lab.),
More stuff on academies, residential care for the elderly,
‘Social business’ (sic), almshouses,
The ownership of Clifton Downs,
‘Although some 460 years old, the Society
is fresh and full of vigour and purpose’;
‘ … The Society and Bristol prospered. Trading patterns changed
over the centuries, with the later years marked
by the appalling period of slave trading in the 18th century.’
It all felt a bit Kafkaesque,
An arcane, shadowy world of ruling class disinformation …
Where philanthropy and charity
Obscures the hierarchy of ruling class control…

Bristol Doors Open Days
The Merchants’ Hall
indocilis pauperiem pati
‘One who cannot learn to bear poverty’

The clock chimed the hour.
‘Well, that’s the end of the tour. Any questions?’
‘Only the inevitable question about slavery:
How did the Society benefit from slavery?’
‘Well of course, it’s no secret that individual merchants were involved in the slave trade. But not the Society itself.’
Fair enough then.
Off we went into the rain,
Out past the pinstriped bantering beadle,
And down to Redcliffe Caves:
‘Contrary to rumour slaves were never kept in the caves …
slaves were never directly traded through Bristol itself.’

Outside, ignored by most of the throng,
A fenced site, tagged edgeland tumbledown,
Demolition awaiting,
And on the side,
A searing depiction of a slave ship,
A searing work of art,
With this message about our ‘Island Story’:
‘IN MEMORY
of the ones that were
TAKEN AWAY from their
Freedom, STOLEN from
THEIR FAMILIES AND
HISTORY’
I asked an official at the caves:
‘Is this a publicly sanctioned work of art
or a guerrilla memorialization?’
‘Not sanctioned.
It appeared mysteriously overnight about nine months ago.’

It had been an old school sort of day,
So I decided to do some homework back in Stroud,
Got Madge Dresser’s Slavery Obscured down from the shelf,
Leafed through the index to discover:
One:
‘By the beginning of the seventeenth century, Bristol’s Society of Merchant Venturers, first established in 1552, had re-formed and consolidated its position as the most exclusive voice of the city’s overseas merchants. This was the very time which saw the establishment of a British presence in the Caribbean and the mainland colonies.’
Two:
‘In 1690 John Carey acted as an agent for the Merchant Venturers in London and was appointed … along with others, to draw up a petition for Parliament for “letting the merchants of this City to a share in the African trade.”’
Three:
‘In 1692, he advanced the Society of Merchant Venturers £600 towards the building of a new quay and cranes on the Bristol docks, for which he was soon reimbursed.’
Four:
‘Much Clifton property was owned by the Society of Merchant Venturers , and the eighteenth century saw the progressive development in both bespoke and speculative housing … Clifton was awash with slave-based wealth.’
Five:
‘In Bristol, the Society of Merchant Venturers, which had organized a memorial against abolition in March 1788 went on the following year to organize a group of African and West India merchants and manufacturers with related interests to rally around the anti-abolitionist cause.’

Walking and Podcasting: The Tempest, Sapperton, Cirencester and Walking Practices

Thanks to Richard Styles and Kel Portman for the above photos.

Sometimes a walk is as powerful as a play or film or football match,
You can’t sleep afterwards,
Your mind keeps revisiting snatches of conversation,
Or landscape technicolour pictures appear in your head,
Or memories of moments but they’re not memento mori,
It’s all alive and vital,
Not Coleridge’s Lime Tree Bower My Prison,
Instead, a diorama of recollection:
We talked, inter alia, of the following:
The Sublime, the Gothick, the Picturesque,
The unacknowledged ubiquity of slavery money,
And its Keynsian multiplier effect,
Both immediate, delayed or submerged;
Slavery:
‘The Shame that dare not speak its Name’;
Alexander Pope, Coleridge, Wordsworth,
King Arthur, fable, myth, memorialisation,
The invention of tradition,
Heritage and Counter-Heritage,
The Grand Tour,
‘Rule Britannia’;
A Celtic monk’s marginalia as we passed a puddle:
‘In the water’s canvas bright sunshine paints the picture of the day’;
Tobias Smollett, Daniel Defoe, Tristam Shandy, Ozymandias,
Sapperton Tunnel, the source of the Frome, the Slad Brook,
The watershed at Miserden,
The edgelands around the Thames and Severn Canal,
King George the Third’s visit to the tunnel,
18th century sight-seers,
Inland navigators, canal leggers, bricklayers;
Ecophilia, Topophilia, Logophilia,
Ocular-centred walking and the visually impaired,
Podcasting and the recording of …
The senses when out walking,
The squelch and oozing of water beneath one’s boots,
The fragrance of spearmint,
The cry of a buzzard,
The taste of spring-water,
The sharp touch of a nettle,
Learning how to describe what we see when we see …
The Blake-like vision of the universe within the palm of one’s hand;
Or remembering Caliban:
‘Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.’
We talked of different walking practices:
The pre-researched, the contextualised, the informed,
The drift, the derivee, the detournement,
The unexpected, the ad-lib spontaneous extemporised,
The performative, the collective, the democratic, the led,
How Kel practises a 5,000 pace rhythm,
With a mix of the random and the rendezvous,
Collecting keepsakes from the flotsam and jetsam
Of the landscape,
Material for ambulatory art;
Taking readings of elevation and distance,
The mensuration of a trip through a botanist’s eye,
Eye Bright, and clumps of autumn crocus;
Musing on the duality of meanings of ‘folly’,
Its etymology;
The search for the hidden narrative of slavery,
Triangular metaphor in a landscape,
Viewed through a Claude Glass gaze,
Then cross-examining the practice of walking,
Methodology and form rather than content:
How eight to twelve is just the right number,
There is no dilution of experience for anyone then,
But there is a critical mass to generate the diverse and heterodox,
And the walk can operate collectively and democratically,
A psychogeographical/mythogeographical/performative
Anarcho-Syndicalist Collective,
Sharing thoughts and observations,
Ambling through cycloramas and panoramas
Of space and time,
Even if the path lies straight in front of your nose.

The Tempest and Sapperton Church

Introduction

I am not saying there is a direct link between the Jacobean panelling in St Kenelm’s and Shakespeare’s The Tempest. I am merely pointing at the way they are connected by the zeitgeist of ‘The Age of Exploration’, and its consequent mix of ‘the exotic’, imperialism, slavery, the engendering of an ideology of racism, and Christianity’s attitude towards the ‘heathen’.

The Tempest was probably written in 1610-11; the panelling is Jacobean. Neither came out of thin air. The late 16th century saw Elizabethan expeditions to ‘the New World’ (Raleigh, Roanoke etc.), whilst a colony was successfully founded at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. Tobacco production and the fabled tale of Pocahontas followed in its Jacobean wake.

As regards Africa, and the Americas, Sir John Hawkins’ slaving voyages gained the royal backing of Queen Elizabeth as early as the 1560s. This inter-continental new world now meant that England – and Gloucestershire – were now situate within the broad reaches of the ‘Black Atlantic’ and the ‘Atlantic Archipelago’. We have an early parish record entry to confirm this: in 1603, on the 22nd November, in Bisley, John Davies, ‘ye black’, was buried.

Yet despite Hawkins’ predatory slaving on the African coastline, and despite exploitative English protestant attitudes towards first nation peoples in the Americas, a considerable body of evidence points to the 18th century Age of Enlightenment as the crucible for the development of an ideology of racism. Not the 16th or 17th centuries. So what did the figures on that 17th century panelling mean to those who commissioned them? And how were they first ‘read’ by those who first viewed them? And how have those readings changed over time? And how do we read them now?

Before we think about that, however, we have to think about the memorial in the church to Henry Poole, who died in 1616. It includes the ‘head of a black man’. The Poole family were wealthy landowners before the reign of King James, and even though Henry became even wealthier, are we going too far in seeing the black head as symbolic of the source of a new treasure chest?

Mark Hewlett wrote to me after a visit to the church:
‘It seems that the Poole memorial may not have been constructed until circa 1730, more than 100 years after his death. I am not sure why it took so long. This may make the inclusion of the head of the black man even more obscure. The head is set in the wall at the side of the monument. It clearly seems to relate to the memorial but not to be an integral part of it. See the attached pic – head is on the wall on the right. It is difficult to know what to make of it. Is it a depiction of a slave? Is it a black servant? The head seems to be represented in a classical way. Is that a laurel wreath? The person depicted seems to wearing a purple (?) garment… not really very slave like? Possibly not really very servant like. Why did the maker of the monument include the head of a black man (more than 100 years after the death of Thomas Poole)?’
The information booklet in the church tells us: ‘To the right, on the wall, is a bust of a black man. Maybe the Pooles had West Indian plantation connections. At any rate they were clearly very fond of this man, presumably a retainer.’ Well, well.
Now to the Jacobean panelling: this was, of course, originally in the secular setting of Sapperton Manor: the Atkyns family bought the manor house from the Pooles in 1661; the first Earl Bathurst then acquired it before demolishing it in 1730. The panelling was then donated to the church.
So with a nod to post-colonial studies and to historical phenomenology, what do those figures on the panels tell us about attitudes towards ‘race’, ‘the exotic’, wealth, slavery, the ‘noble savage’, Christianity, ‘the heathen’, ‘The Age of Exploration’, and ‘The Age of Empire’? What can we disentangle with minute observation? And can we be value-free in our minute observation and consequent description?
The figures, male and female, reveal bare torsos, often with necklaces, or charms or amulets. The aureoles on the female breasts are accentuated. Legs and genitalia are concealed behind a panel decorated with sinuous tendrils, cornucopia, and feline, demonic heads. Hair and headdresses adorn faces that show a variety of expressions, through differing positions of lips and mouth, together with direction and type of gaze. One male shows alarm and anger, with his hand clutching his chest – has his necklace or amulet been stolen from him? The beards on the males are more suggestive of Jacobean, European fashion.

How does Caliban and The Tempest fit into all of this?

‘This island’s mine, by Sycorax my mother,
Which thou tak’st from me. When thou cam’st first,
Thou strok’st me and mad’st much of me, wouldst give me
Water with berries in ‘t, and teach me how
To name the bigger light and how the less,
That burn by day and night. And then I loved thee,
And show’d thee all the qualities o’ th’ isle,
The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile.
Cursed be I that did so! All the charms
Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you,
For I am all the subjects that you have,
Which first was mine own king; and here you sty me
In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me
The rest o’ th’ island.’

‘You taught me language, and my profit on ‘t
Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you

For learning me your language!’

‘No, pray thee.
[Aside.] I must obey. His art is of such power
It would control my dam’s god, Setebos,
and make a vassal of him.’

‘I’ll swear upon that bottle to be thy true
subject, or the liquor is not earthly.’

‘I’ll show thee every fertile inch o’ th’ island,
And I will kiss thy foot. I prithee, be my god.’

CALIBAN [sings]
‘No more dams I’ll make for fish,
Nor fetch in firing
At requiring,
Nor scrape trencher, nor wash dish .
‘Ban, ‘ban, Ca-caliban
Has a new master. Get a new man.
Freedom, high-day! High-day, freedom!
Freedom, high-day, freedom!’

‘Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open, and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
I cried to dream again.’

‘I say by sorcery he got this isle;
From me he got it. If thy greatness will,
Revenge it on him, for I know thou dar’st,
But this thing dare not.’

‘As wicked dew as e’er my mother brushed

With raven’s feather from unwholesome fen
Drop on you both. A southwest blow on you
And blister you all o’er.’

PROSPERO
‘For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps,
Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up. Urchins
Shall, for that vast of night that they may work,
All exercise on thee. Thou shalt be pinched
As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging
Than bees that made ’em.’

CALIBAN
[aside] ‘These be fine things, an if they be not
sprites. That’s a brave god and bears celestial liquor.
I will kneel to him. ‘ He crawls out from under the
cloak.

‘As I told thee before, I am subject
to a tyrant, a sorcerer, that by his cunning hath
cheated me of the island.’

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’,
How should we memorialise you?

And now to ‘The Enlightenment”: How does that fit into all of this?

The ideology of ‘race’ developed more forcefully and systematically in the 18th century, alongside the slave trade. The associated rise of capitalism with associated ideas of individualism, self-help, and property, were also part of the mix contributing to the development of racial ideology. In consequence, slaving and slave ownership were seen as quick and obvious ways to gain honest wealth.

Roderick Random, by Tobias Smollett:

Smollett’s descriptions of a surgeon’s life on board ship in the Royal Navy are much trumpeted. But there is much – forgotten or ignored – on slaving too, at the end of chapter LXV and the beginning of chapter LXV1:

‘In less than a fortnight after our separation, we made the land of Guinea, near the mouth of the River Gambia, and trading along the coast as far to the southward of the line as Angola and Bengua, in less than six months disposed of the greatest part of our cargo, and purchased four hundred negroes, my adventure having been laid out in gold dust.
Our complement being made up, we took our departure from Cape Negro, and arrived in the Rio de la Plata in six weeks, having met with nothing remarkable in our voyage, except an epidemic fever, not unlike the jail distemper, which broke out among our slaves and carried off a good many of the ship’s company; among whom I lost one of my mates, and poor Strap had well-nigh given up the ghost. Having produced our passport to the Spanish governor, we were received with great courtesy, sold our slaves in a very few days, and could have put off five times the number at our own price; though we were obliged to smuggle the rest of our merchandise, consisting of European bale goods, which, however, we made shift to dispose of at great advantage.’

CHAPTER LXV1

‘Our ship being freed from the disagreeable landing of negroes, to whom, indeed, I had been a miserable slave since our leaving the coast of Guinea, I began to enjoy myself… I calculated the profits of my voyage, which even exceeded my expectation; resolved to purchase a handsome sinecure upon my arrival in England, and, if I should find the squire as averse to me as ever, marry his sister by stealth … ‘

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Commentaries usually centre on Crusoe’s relationship with Man Friday and his key capitalist values of practicality, self-improvement and self-help. But we also see those values applied to slaving – ‘negroes’ have become commodities and an easy passage to wealth and status.

‘You may suppose, that having now lived four years in the Brazils, and beginning to thrive and prosper very well on my plantation, I had not only learned the language, but had contracted acquaintance and friendship … and that in my discourses … I had frequently given them an account of my two voyages to the coast of Guinea … how easy it was to purchase upon the coast for trifles … negroes, for the service of the Brazils, in great numbers …

It happened being in company of some merchants and planters of my acquaintance … three of them came to me the next morning … the question was, whether I would … manage the trading part upon the coast of Guinea, and they offered me that I should have my equal share of the negroes without providing my part of the stock.’

Edgelands and Industry: A Look at Hidden Stroud in Space and Time

Announcing “Edgelands and Industry: a look at Hidden Stroud in Space and Time” – A fringe-time walke:

We are a collaborative group unearthing the radical history of Stroud through walking and mapping the landscape, interpreting and re-imagining our local history. Following the huge success of our walk as part of last year’s Stroud Fringe we will be setting off again from The Fountain Inn, Slad Road at 4:00pm on Sunday. This year’s performative walk, ‘Edgelands and Industry: a look at hidden Stroud in space and time’ is approximately 3 hours long, (you can also join the walk at the Upper Lock Cafe at 4:30pm) ends at the The Fountain Inn at 7:00pm with some reflective performance about the walk and a well earned drink!

Colonial Countryside? Disenchantment?

Disenchantment: The Picturesque Cotswolds and ‘Colonial Countryside’
A Walk in the Park

David Olusoga: ‘Few acts of collective forgetting have been as thorough and as successful as the erasing of slavery from Britain’s “island story”.’

The following descriptions from the internet describe the beauty of Cirencester Park. There is no mention of something else … more of that, later.

Disenchantment: The Picturesque Cotswolds and ‘Colonial Countryside’
A Walk in the Park

David Olusoga: ‘Few acts of collective forgetting have been as thorough and as successful as the erasing of slavery from Britain’s “island story”.’

The following descriptions from the internet describe the beauty of Cirencester Park. There is no mention of something else … more of that, later.

‘Cirencester Park is a superb example of a forest-style garden, occupying 3,000 acres branching out from Cirencester. The park is privately owned, but it is open to the public free of charge, by kind permission of the owner, Lord Bathurst..’
‘Cirencester Park and Estate: At the end of Park Street you cannot help but notice a very tall hedge, the tallest yew hedge in the world. This marks the beginning of the precincts of the Bathurst estate, or Cirencester Park … Provided that you are out of the park by 5pm, you can walk through the park from Cirencester to Sapperton, watching the church, in direct line with the avenue, gradually recede into the distance. THE ESTATE: The park is essentially an early 18th century creation, the great era of English landscaping, the result of a collaboration between the 1st Earl Bathurst and the poet and landscaper, Alexander Pope, who was a frequent visitor to Cirencester
“Perfect Cotswold countryside wander.”
‘Alexander Pope, a fellow Tory and leading figure in London gardening and architectural circles, was a good friend of the 1st Earl and a frequent visitor to Cirencester. Bathurst and Pope became collaborators and together they planned the pinnacle of Bathurst’s life’s work – the creation of a sublime landscaped park … Lord Bathurst was a great believer in seasonal colour, something that is standard in gardening design today, but was rare and expensive to achieve in the 18th century. He spent a great deal of time and trouble choosing the species of trees to be planted and it is thanks to his extraordinary foresight that the park still boasts some of the most stunning vistas in England. Lord Bathurst was an early proponent of the Gothick Revival style …

That Missing Something Else

The church at Sapperton is outwardly modest and yew tree shadowed,
But inside is a huge rococo stone effigy to Sir Robert Atkyns
(Once of this Frome valley parish at Pinbury Park);
His father owned and lived at Sapperton Manor,
‘A very grand building, rather overpowering’,
According to Alan Pilbeam in Gloucestershire 300 Yeas Ago.

A 1712 picture of the house and grounds is engrossing:
It shows umpteen bays, finials, gables, chimneys and trees,
And a vast estate of sylvan straight-line avenues,
Progressively receding into far distant vanishing point.

A bowling green stands in the foreground of this landscaped geometry,
With three diminutive figures triangulated in leisured sport –
Their pose captured forever like a draughtsman’s contract.
And as these figures went about their contracted play,
Sir Robert completed The Ancient and Present State of Glostershire
Before dying of dysentery – his book published posthumously.

The house was demolished some twenty years later,
But you can walk to its ghosts down the track by the side of the church:
‘A grassy mound of rubble below the church marks its former site …
The unusually flat surface beside the mound was the bowling green’ –
We descended to this spot to recreate and limn the bowlers’ triangle,
In a draughtsman’s liminal contact, contracted through time,
Surveyed with scales of justice.

The Sapperton estate was acquired by the Bathursts
(Patrician beneficiaries of the profits of slavery),
Who promptly demolished the grand house
(The Age of Elegance and Reason),
And though Alexander Pope might wander through this valley,
Augustan couplet praise, two a penny,
As surveyors completed their triangulations …

A
Slaving ship from Bristol,
The Middle Passage to the West Indies,
And a healthy profit back across the Atlantic …

Meant a different triangle …

Alexander Pope’s Epistle to Bathurst

‘The Sense to value Riches, with the Art
T’enjoy them, and the Virtue to impart,
Not meanly, nor ambitiously pursu’d,
Nor sunk by sloth, nor rais’d by servitude;
To balance Fortune by a just expence,
Join with Oeconomy, Magnificence;
With splendour, charity; with plenty; health;
Oh teach us BATHURST! yet unspoil’d by wealth!’

That Missing Something Else

The English Heritage publication Slavery and the British Country House, edited by Madge Dresser and Andrew Hann can put you right, however. Madge Dresser writes that ‘Commercial considerations as well as political ones may have reinforced the tendencies of private proprietors of stately homes to offer the public an even more deracialised version of their past history, when that history is offered at all. Take, for example, a grand country house belonging to the Bathurst family and one associated now more with horses than slavery.’

It’s true that the third Earl (a member of Lord Liverpool’s ‘Repressive Tory’ cabinet) supported abolition by the 1820’s – and that’s what comes up on a Google search for ‘Bathurst and Slavery’. You don’t get a mention of Benjamin Bathurst’s late 17th century Deputy Governorship of the Leeward Islands, nor his Royal African Company’s position and shares. He died in 1704 and the house at Cirencester Park was built ten or so years later ‘for his son, Alan, the first Earl … the grounds designed with the help of Alexander Pope.’

The estate itself, is vast: when you wander through the Arts and Crafts village of Sapperton, or visit Coates, or Pinbury Park, or innocently follow the River Frome, or search for the source of the Thames, try to connect this sequestered Cotswold pastoral with the Atlantic ocean and shark-shadowed ships on the Middle Passage to the plantations.

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

– T. S. Eliot

‘The stately homes of England
How beautiful they stand
To prove the upper classes
Still have the upper hand’

‘Heritage’:
Grandeur, wealth, stability, beauty, power, art, culture, landscaped gardens,
Arcadia, follies, the classics, aesthetics, elegance, manners, the Grand Tour,
The Augustan Age of Elegance,
The Age of Enlightenment –
This is the overt heritage of the English Stately Home.

But what of the covert heritage of some of these august piles –

Plantations, sugar, tobacco,
The triangular trade,
Slaving,
Slavery,
Slavery compensation,
Colonial office in the West Indies,
A concealed Keynsian multiplier effect,
A hidden Venn diagram link …
Or innocent coincidence on the journey
From the counting house to the country house …

So let us walk together, with our map.
To reflect on the cult of the picturesque …
Alexander Pope,
A triangular cultural trope:

The

Cult of the Sublime,
The Romantic Imagination,
The fashion for the Gothick,
The Shakespearian trope of this ‘sceptred isle’,
The lyrical self-contained world of the stately home,

Think about Goldney House in Clifton,
Where as Roger H Leech put it, wih M Leone:
“The setting out of these elite falling gardens can be seen as forming part of the process called ‘Georgianisation’, in this instance the ‘ideology of naturalising the hierarchical conditions of social life through landscape architecture’.

And that means we have to leave the insular world of the stately home,
Within this ‘sceptred isle’,
And think about The Tempest,
Prospero, Ariel, and Caliban,
Especially the representation of poor Caliban,

For ‘heritage’, like ‘charity’, does not always begin at home.

Thoughts derived from a reading of
Creating Memorials Building Identities The Politics of Memory in the Black Atlantic
(Alan Price Liverpool University Press 2012)

Doors of No Return,
Historic, documented, liminal places,
Not gone with the wind, but both visible and invisible,
Spaces and places in the black Atlantic archipelago
With messages and mementoes from the slaving past,
Open doors to the truth –
But we too have landscapes that require re-reading,
Reinterpretations that acknowledge a history
That might be interwoven with the triangular trade,
But whose messages are obscured or buried –
The home of Stroud Scarlet, for example;

So how do we create a counter-narrative?
That is,
“A performative counter-narrative, what we might call a ‘guerrilla memory’”,
Or “Lieux de memoire, sites of history, torn away from the moment of history” (Pierre Nora),
Memorialisation that moves beyond ‘obsessional empiricism’
and ‘the fetishisation of surviving historical documents and sources’,
To a counter-heritage, a counter-memorialisation.
18th
Century
Sea Doggerel
21st Century Shadow

‘All
ship-shape
and Bristol fashion’:
Stroud Scarlet and trade expansion,
Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria, Guinea, Benin, Angola, Gambia.

The
Door
of No Return:
Atlantic Middle Passage,
Nevis, Barbados, Jamaica,
Virginia, Haiti, South Carolina.
Fill the hold with sugar, cotton, tobacco –
Still casting a ship-shape triangular shadow.

The Thames and Severn Canal History and Guide by David Viner

The first Earl Bathurst was an early supporter of the canal idea,
to link the Severn and the Thames,
imagining the union of the two great rivers
on his estate;
Cirencester Park would see a
‘Marriage … which would be the
Admiration of Posterity’,
wrote Alexander Pope.

Bunce Island in Sierra Leone was once an early British slaving headquarters: ‘In exchange for slaves and other valuable commodities the British offered glass beads, bundles of cloth, gunpowder, European metal goods, tobacco pipes, bottles of liquor and European weapons. Until a few years ago the ground was … littered with tiny glass beads and fragments of pottery … Most of these grim souvenirs have been hoovered up by tourists … but many more relics of the trade lie beneath the soil, along with iron nails used to attach shackles and chains to African arms …’ Black and British A Forgotten History – David Olusoga

The Thames and Severn Canal History and Guide by David Viner

‘The prosperity of the Stroud woollen industry between 1690 and 1760’
also stimulated proposals for the canal.
(This also coincided with the Bristol boom-time for slaving profits
– how much of that cloth that was bartered
for slaves in Sierra Leone and beyond
came from Stroudwater,
I wonder.
We are allowed to wonder.)

The placid waters of the Stroudwater Navigation and the Thames and Severn Canal; the rustic banks of the Severn, and the meads by the Thames, all deceive the senses. Our senses should be alarmed, like Scrooge with Marley, with apparitions of coats of arms, purses, chains, links, cash boxes, keys, ledgers, deeds and padlocks. And spectral sharks might appear to leap from the bloodied inland waters. Think of that at Bathurst Meadow Lock.

Finally, terra firma and permissive rights of way:

From 1967: Near the Round Tower, Cirencester Park S0 998026
‘A row of deserted cottages stands near the Ewepens, on the ‘Bisley Path’, the former main road from Cirencester to Bisley and Painswick, and Gloucester. At this point the road branched off for Minchinhampton and Coates, through what is now Cirencester Park … ‘this road became the private property of Earl Bathurst’ in 1818.

Property is Theft: a Masque
‘Town and Gown’
In Cirencester;
And in the shire:
‘Smock and Crown’.

Despite the high walls, we are allowed to walk the estate …
(The post-modernist illusion of equality;
Marcuse’s ‘Repressive Tolerance’;
Gramsci’s cultural hegemony;
The ‘we’re all in it together’ illusion.)

Conclusion

David Olusoga: ‘Few acts of collective forgetting have been as thorough and as successful as the erasing of slavery from Britain’s “island story”.’

Thanks to Mark Hewlett for the above photos and below comments.

Searching for the Soul of Forest Green Part Two

‘We think place is about space but in fact, it is really about time.’
(Rebecca Solnit)

When I first went in search of the soul of FGR,
I wandered through fields and lanes and hills and hedgerows,
Trying to find FGR’s elusive genius loci,
A topographical version of the soul,
Interwoven with local history,
Only to reach the conclusion that this soul
Might just be found in the imagination,
An invented fey ley line,
Emanating from the Jovial Forester,
Stretching up to The New Lawn Another Way
Down through the old hamlet of Forest Green,
And along the valley to the River Frome,
And thence to the River Severn,
A gateway to a world far beyond the Five Valleys:
In short, a Janus-like conjoining
Of both introspection and extrojection.

But a reading of Tim Barnard’s FGR history:
Something to Shout About
Gave me something to think about,
And grounded me further in time as well as space,

‘We think place is about space but in fact, it is really about time.’
(Rebecca Solnit)

But a reading of Tim Barnard’s FGR history:
Something to Shout About
Gave me something to think about,
And grounded me further in time as well as space,

Viz:

Late 19th century Stroud Journal football reports used an eccentric first person approach from the point of view of the football: for example, ‘The goal Forest Green got was … a very lucky one. I was quite by myself, and the Stroud goalkeeper rushed at me … Signed: The Ball.’
Woodchester Priory had a team in 1895, and players readily switched clubs: Woodchester, Nailsworth, Forest Green, Stroud, and so on.
On the other hand, playing for Forest Green passed through the generations; the same names appear – Marmont, for example; or, the Browns: ‘Don’t you dare sign for Shortwood – Browns play for Forest Green …’ There was the ‘exaggeration of small differences’ syndrome: Newmarket, Shortwood, Forest Green.
A village like Amberley could put out a team before the Great War; so could the M&SWJ Railway – it makes you think about how that war ripped the hearts out of so many villages. (No one smiles in early 1920s team pictures, as a rule, do they?)
What’s in a name? Forest Green and Nailsworth teams seemed to almost serially swop names before the Great War: ‘Nailsworth and Forest Green United’ standing out as an archetypal period piece of footballing nomenclature.
Extracts from Trenchcoats for Goalposts: ‘Fancy a pint, Ernie?’ ‘Don’t mind if I do, Ernie.’ Lights shine on sign – Both: ‘The Jovial Foresters!’ ‘Home of Forest Green. Changed in here every Saturday. Its very quiet tonight though isn’t it.’ ‘Well … that’s old Kitchener for you.’ Both: ‘Your Country Needs You!’
Who’s for the Game? by Jessie Pope:

Who’s for the game, the biggest that’s played,
The red crashing game of a fight?
Who’ll grip and tackle the job unafraid?
And who thinks he’d rather sit tight?
Who’ll toe the line for the signal to ‘Go!’?
Who’ll give his country a hand?
Who wants a turn to himself in the show?
And who wants a seat in the stand?
Who knows it won’t be a picnic – not much-
Yet eagerly shoulders a gun?
Who would much rather come back with a crutch
Than lie low and be out of the fun?
Come along, lads –
But you’ll come on all right –
For there’s only one course to pursue,
Your country is up to her neck in a fight,
And she’s looking and calling for you.
Lilian Northwood lived close to the pub and looked back to the post-war years in Forest Green Lily. She spoke of the team’s successes; marching behind the Nailsworth silver band; ‘The Rovers’ black and white flag fluttered proudly in the breeze’; music and dancing in the street outside the pub:
We are the Forest Green Rovers
Our forwards are hot on the ball
Our half-backs and full-backs want beating
And the goalie they can’t beat at all
Chorus
Where will they be when the Rovers take the running?
Where will they be when they’ve done their level best?
Where will they be with all their strength and cunning?

Ten to one on the Rovers and nothing on the rest.’
FG yo-yoed up and down Chestnut Hill from The Lawn to Nailsworth and back in the 1920s. Pitches included Tanner’s Piece (now Park Road); Enoch’s Field (now King George V’s Playing Fields); Hayes Road (near the Jovial Forester), owned by FG Congregational Church – they had a team too, and The Lawn. You could spectate from a bedroom window, or crawl through hedgerows, or retrieve footballs from the same hedgerows, or help cut the grass and keep the ground tidy.
The British Empire transmitted its racial tropes: one ‘mascot’ would dispense with the customary black and white stripes, top hat and tails, and would, instead, ‘black up’, climbing Spring Hill, frightening children, armed with a shield and a spear.
Society transmitted its gender tropes: wives, sisters, aunts, mothers had to wash and iron all the football kit, on top of everything else.
1936 was a year! Abdication Crisis … Hitler’s gamble on marching into the Rhineland … FG decide to buy the football ground at auction, without the necessary.
Local derbies attracted crowds of some seven hundred, otherwise ‘just a smattering’ (Peter Vick). People biked and walked over the commons for the derbies, Brimscombe being the key game for both FG and Brimscombe.
The sun shone, lawns were being mown, pillboxes at Framilode built facing the wrong way: ‘What a day for a war.’ During WW2, Lord Lee (resident at Avening) paid for a cup for a local league; it was won by Nailsworth Rangers and placed on a shelf at the Britannia; from where it mysteriously disappeared. Other matches took place against the RAF at Aston Down; the Home Guard kept watch; my old friend Peter Tickner was evacuated to Eastington from where he witnessed the night sky turn red when Coventry was blitzed; the football pitch at The Lawn was turned over to pasture. Players such as Ronnie Clift (killed in Crete) lost their lives.
After the war, Peter Vick would regularly cut his nose when heading the ball – his glasses were of steel, made to sit inside a gas mask. Other consequences of the war included Polish refugees and service people living in camps. (Remember the Polish contribution to the Battle of Britain and ‘The few’) They had a team in the Stroud League in the early 50s.
1948-49 saw programmes sold for the first time – the night before a match at the George Hotel in Nailsworth and the Jolly Forester.
1951: a colour change almost occurred, from black and white stripes (established 1919) to green and white stripes.

‘and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.’ TS Eliot
And the swinging sixties? 1965: Ready Steady Go!(?) No – Points West. FG on TV for the first time with the opening of the new grandstand.
Welcome to the 1970s: Punk comes and goes … The Falklands War … the New Romantics … and … … Mrs. Thatcher … and … ‘WEMBERLY, WEMBERLY, WE ARE THE FAMOUS FOREST GREEN ROVERS AND WE’RE PLAYING AT WEMBERLY’ 1982 FA Vase Final FGR 3 Rainworth Miners Welfare 0. The poignancy of that name! Rainworth Miners Welfare – little did we know exactly what was just around the corner … Miners’ Support Group(s) in Stroud …
And after that for FGR? Gates below 200; a team picture from 1986-87, back row, 2nd left: ‘unknown’.
And a name change … 1989, FGR rebranded as Stroud FC. A shock to all, one year before the FGR centenary. A couple of years later, and, money was owed to the Inland Revenue, the brewery was ‘after them’, the coffers could barely run to turning on the floodlights, debts kept mounting, a fanzine was launched and closed after two issues and the threat of legal action … But! There was a return to the 1970s black and white kit! And in May 1992, the name reverted back to Forest Green Rovers!
Frank Gregan was an old school manager – his training routines included sending the players up and down Chestnut Hill to report back on the price of an onion bhaji; there’s something of the Empire about this … did the restaurant continually alter the price under Mr. Gregan’s orders? Was inflation that rampant? Or was it an easy gig for the players … ‘Same price as last week, boss.’ Anyway, now that Girish is selling his vegan curries up at the New Lawn, life gets easier on the training ground.
A new stand in 1996; gates more than doubled in a couple of years to 500 … and a history of local, regional and the quaintly named ‘Hellenic League’, together with back-to-back promotions brought the demands of modernity to the table: promotion to the Conference would mean further ground improvements: more seats; more covered terracing.
The end of the millennium meant FGR’s second visit to Wembley, with a whole series of multiple miraculous escapes from relegation from the Conference in the new one. Last Minute Goals! Results improbably going FGR’s way on the final day of the season! Goal Difference! Other club’s malfeasance or inadequate stadiums! Glued to teletext and ceefax! You couldn’t make it up, folks! Safe for another season!
Meanwhile, in a parallel universe … ideas for a new stadium at Stonehouse; or along the Avening Road; instead … plans for a new stand at The Lawn to satisfy Conference rules and regulations. And in another parallel universe … coaches from Worksop for a fixture against FGR went to Forest Green, near Gatwick. You couldn’t make it up, folks!
And in yet another parallel universe … a repeated line: ‘The FA Vase and FA Trophy double would have to wait for another year.’
And back at the ranch … Stroud College objected to any expansion of the ground … that would mean that FGR could face relegation as the ground would not satisfy Conference regulations … so attention turned to the aptly named Highwood playing fields … work started 2005 … But debts continued to mount, indeed, spiral. And even though initial discussions with Dale Vince in 2009 about sponsorship were fruitless … like a windblown Topsy, the discussions grew … as did the involvement of Mr Vince, as chairman; as did the sponsorship of Ecotricity, as did the environmental awareness re cuisine and transport … and the team’s colours changed once more …
And now here we at The New Lawn, in the Football League, and with the possibility of a change of home to Eastington: there’s something typically FGR paradoxical about going west to Eastington; ‘Another Way’.

Conclusion

‘and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.’ TS Eliot

‘Pub team with money, you’re just a pub team with money.’

When the Eastleigh fans sang that, did they know that they were referencing the Jolly Forester?
Or was there an ambient, subliminal force at work?
A fey ley line working its magic, channeled from the old Jolly Forester?
The spiritual home of FGR.
The soul of Forest Green.

FGR have had an equivocal relationship with Forest Green and the local landscape; Newmarket, Shortwood, Nailsworth, Stroud, the Five Valleys; a part of it and apart from it. The topography has always meant a pressure on space and the capacity of stadiums. Climbing the football ladder has constantly meant a questioning of the utility of the stadiums at The Lawn and The New Lawn. Heraclitus: ‘The only constant is flux.’

Ditto, team strip and colours.

Ditto, getting to and from the match. ‘O tempora, o mores!’

The tales of LS Lowry-like women and men, girls and boys, matchstick dogs and cats … walking or cycling over the commons … and now … all those cars jamming the local roads … despite a brilliant local bus service.
It would be great if FGR could promote a healthy life style not just through diet and energy, but also through promoting walking, cycling and using public transport to the match.

I think it was Perry Anderson who said that nations were ‘imagined communities’. The same could be said of FGR – but having read, thought, wandered and wondered, my ultimate conclusion is that the heart and soul of the ‘imagined community of FGR lies by the Jolly Forester. (Singular? Plural?)
I shall walk up there sometime and re-imagine the band playing in the street outside, the dancing in the lanes, the singing, the celebratory recompense that FGR could give after the devastation of the Great War.
(See point 7 above.)

‘and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.’ TS Eliot

‘Pub team with money, you’re just a pub team with money.’

If and when the move to Eastington takes place, I hope there could be some heritage boards constructed at the new ground. And if the owners agreed, a plaque at the house which was the pub and changing room. There is a post box in the wall there: wouldn’t it be marvelous if when the ground switch happens, fans posted a memory of The Lawn/New Lawn to the new ground. There could be a changing display.

‘and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.’ TS Eliot

Post script
Stuart, I’ve been reading an e-copy of this. Fascinated by FGR’s early amalgamation with Nailsworth Thursday FC

FOOTBALL by Jean Philippe Toussaint
‘Toussaint is carving out one of the most fascinating literary oeuvres of our times.’ – Nicholas Lezard, Guardian
‘This is a book that no one will like, not intellectuals, who aren’t interested in football, or football-lovers, who will find it too intellectual. But I had to write it, I didn’t want to break the fine thread that still connects me to the world.’ (Jean Philippe Toussaint

Emerveillement
‘Le football, comme la peinture, selon Leonard de Vinci, est cosa mentale, c’est dans l’imaginaire qu’iI se mesure et s’apprecie. La nature de l’emerveillement que le football suscite provient des fantasmes de triomphe et de toute-puissance qu’il genere dans notre esprit.’

Wonder

‘Football, like painting according to Leonardo da Vinci, is a cosa mentale; it is in the imagination that it is measured and appreciated. The nature of the wonder that football provokes derives from the fantasies of triumph and omnipotence that it generates in our minds.’
(With thanks to Helen Aubrey for the translation)

Heritage and Counter-Heritage

Heritage and Counter-Heritage in Stroud and the Five Valleys

The text below is what I think is important when considering SDC’s consultation on Stroud’s ‘Heritage’:

‘I think it is important to reflect on the whole notion of counter-heritage, too. By that, I mean a practice that goes beyond the visible and the archived: following the EP Thompson/Raphael Samuel historiographical process of giving a voice to the forgotten, ignored or marginalised, and not just foregrounding the ‘drum and trumpet’ outlook. Any new heritage strategy should consider this – for example: Stroud’s current heritage boards: the one in the Shambles gives a brief mention to food riots, with no contextualisation and explanation, and then we’re away on the ‘Great Man’ view of the past and naval war.

This counter-heritage should not just be about the lower orders – women and men – of Stroud: the spinners and weavers confronting the march of technology rather than just submitting to it; the Chartists; the poachers; Captain Swing and so on; it should also raise questions about the possible involvement of Stroud scarlet in the slave trade. It is vital that Stroud addresses and presents a multicultural history in the 21st century.

The heritage board near Lechlade, by the canal/Thames interchange at Inglesham , implicitly mentions this – nowhere in Stroud does.

A few slave owners in the district received compensation when slavery was abolished in 1834 – and that injection of capital helped fuel the industrial revolution. The Keynsian multiplier effect from the East India Company – opium, tobacco, slaving – also helped transform our landscape. The Bathurst slavery link also contributed to what is called a ‘colonial countryside’.

Heritage and Counter-Heritage in Stroud and the Five Valleys

The text below is what I think is important when considering SDC’s consultation on Stroud’s ‘Heritage’:

The heritage board near Lechlade, by the canal/Thames interchange at Inglesham , implicitly mentions this – nowhere in Stroud does.

Such counter-heritage memorialisation could also be active, with performative walks that deal in ‘bottom up history’ rather than ‘top down’. That looks at the links with the outside world – imperial, military, trade and slavery – in a questioning rather than drum and trumpet manner. This is the sort of history we re-create on radicalstroud. ‘

Apologies for any typos – I found the font size and shading difficult.

The prose-poem below recounts my search for the information board at the Thames-canal confluence at Inglesham:

This Country

I arose like a lion after slumber
After riding on the buses numbered
54 and 77,
On a public transport shanks’ pony
Percy Shelley Lechlade pilgrimage,
Journeying through the country of This Country:
The tragi-comic landscape of the dispossessed,
The alienated, the ignored and/or indulged,
And High Toryism, as well, of course;

I alighted at St Lawrence’s to pay my respects
To the revolutionary atheist,
Then crossed the halfpenny bridge
(Erected in 1792: ominous year!),
Where foot tolls were ended in 1839
(Another ominous year for the ruling class!),
To reach my other goal,
The heritage board at the canal-river confluence,
The one that states that Stroud cloth went to Africa
(With all that that implies),
And was shipped down to Bristol
(With all that that implies),

The following is from the opening scene of Freedom’s Arch, a commission about Stroud’s arch commemorating the abolition of slavery. This 2003 play was performed at Archway.

FREEDOM’S ARCH

SCENE 1 – ship setting; also rolls of cloth/cotton/chains etc

Young slave: Granny Judith said that in Africa, when she was a girl, they had very few pretty things. Then one day some strangers with pale faces came and dropped a small piece of red flannel on the ground. The cloth came from somewhere called Stroud in England. All the black folks grabbed for it. The strangers dropped more and more pieces of the red cloth, leading the whole village down to the riverbank. When they got there, they saw a ship with many more brightly coloured things on the deck. They rushed forward in excitement, but when they turned round, the gate was chained up and they could not get back. That is how Granny Judith said she got to Jamaica. If that’s true, then she was the lucky one; no musket, sword, chains or facemask for her. But I’m speaking nonsense – how can you be lucky when you’re stolen from your homeland in Africa and sold into slavery far across the ocean?

The following is from a contemporary tweet:

Now I grew up all over the place thanks to my dad’s job so I don’t have this fight-or-flight reaction built in but I do have memory triggers
And one of those triggers is red uniform coats. Those are linked to the mass killings in the mango orchard. And very much linked to horror
My grandmother used to sing old folk songs about the horrors inflicted by the ‘red coats’ (PhD idea for an ethnographer/musicologist btw)

The horror referred to involves a series of hangings in the mango orchard. The year was 1857.

Football Gone Rogue

I went searching for the soul of Forest Green,
Wandering intuitively, ad hoc
Inferentially, without any
A priori knowledge or insight:
It was a tabula rasa wander.

Northfields Road smacked of enclosed fields
(‘Its only bondage was the circling sky’),
And Eighteenth century food riots,
With Captain Swing riding over in Horsley,
While dark satanic mills in the valleys
Stood where weavers once combined for justice.

I crossed the threshold of a century,
Past chapel, school, and blacksmith’s workshop,
Through labyrinths of handloom weavers’ paths,
Along a valley far below the flood threat
Of countless springs and teeming brooks and streams,
Along The Rollers, Chestnut Hill, Star Hill,
And so to the Jovial Foresters,
Where the players used to change for the match,
(Victorian post box in its roadside wall),
Past a blue plaque to Private Charles Marmont,
Died of wounds 21st May 1918,
Aged 20,
Buried Forest Green Chapel Graveyard,
And so to where Joseph Weight used to work
(A Nailsworth Conscientious Objector),
Before he faced the tribunal’s judgement
On whether he really had a conscience.

I went searching for the soul of Forest Green,
Wandering intuitively, ad hoc
Inferentially, without any
A priori knowledge or insight:
It was a tabula rasa wander.

And this is how I found the soul of Nailsworth –
In Newmarket, Shortwood, Horsley, Forest Green,
Wandering up and down through space and time –
And even though this felt a world away
From Stroud, let alone a new stadium
By the motorway at Eastington,
We can magnify small differences:
My DNA takes me back to Bronze Age migrations,
From the western fringes of India,
Thence to Anglo-Saxon invasions
Of what we now call England.

We’re all migrants, aren’t we?
It doesn’t have to be a vampiric
Trope of metempsychosis:
Soul might be in the imagination,
Not a landscape or topography.
We’re all migrants, aren’t we?

The Badgers of Slad

The paintings of badgers on the posts at Slad,
Are beguiling and deceptive in their art,
Seemingly comic and anthropomorphic,
Each one contributes to a tragic tale,
Summarised in that curt and cruel word: cull.
They look like Tommies facing execution,
Tied to their posts at dawn’s first red-streaked light:
What passing-bells for those who die for cattle?

‘Only the monstrous anger of the guns,
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle.’