Category: Walks

Walking: Art-act and Artefact

 

We finished the previous chapter thus: Macfarlane argues that Thomas prefigures the Situationists, ‘Pioneering the walk as an art-act, as artefact.’ Well, that sort of sounds like walking as a pop-up museum in a way, doesn’t it?

I asked my sister, Fliss, and brother-in-law, Rod, if they would send me a few lines about their memories of walking the Downs in Wiltshire when they sometimes recited lines from Edward Thomas to each other.

4 July 2026

Now that our days of long rambles on the Downs

are beyond us, we have wonderful memories of the

sweeping views we had from places like

Wansdyke and Ridgeway, from where at one

spot towards Hackpen, five hill forts are in

view with:

Uffington, Liddington, Barbury, Oldbury and

Martinsell all clearly visible.

Often the words of Alfred Williams and

Richard Jefferies came to mind –

‘Still to find and still to follow

Joy in every hill and hollow

Company in solitude’(A.W.)

‘It is eternity now

I am in the midst of it

It is about me in the sunshine’ (R.J.)

Ridgeway walks always brought

Andrew Young’s ‘On the Ridgeway’ to mind

and we often recite these lines to each other.

65 years wed and it seems as though they

were penned especially for us.

‘Thinking of those who walked here long ago

On this greenway in summer and in snow

She said, “This is the oldest road we tread,

The oldest in the world?”

“Yes, Love,” I said.’

With these happy days only memories

our short strolls are now devoted

to botanising and it’s astonishing

the joy to be had when keeping

eyes down when ambling along.

On a rail track walk we recently

Found five varieties of cranesbill.

Then came the canal, bringing

Edward Thomas to mind with –

Willows, willow herb and meadowsweet

Plus

High cloudlets in the sky

While

Nearby a blackbird sang.

In early spring, our search for ‘Each year’s

First violets, white and lonely’

are usually found in the most unlikely

places – roadside verges where they struggle

to emerge through litter and fallen leaves,

yet they somehow survive.

We are always dipping into Edward Thomas and

have come to love ‘The Huxter’ for the image

it gives of a poor but happy pair chuckling

as they ‘bump down the lane’

Pure Magic

Rod Smith and Felicity Smith

The Huxter

He has a hump like an ape on his back;
He has of money a plentiful lack;
And but for a gay coat of double his girth
There is not a plainer thing on the earth
This fine May morning.

But the huxter has a bottle of beer;
He drives a cart and his wife sits near
Who does not heed his lack or his hump;
And they laugh as down the lane they bump
This fine May morning.

I keep the letters sent to me by my sister and brother-in-law, but not neatly tied together in a bundle or secreted in a box. I leave them in odd places on book shelves hither and thither and forget where I have put them. And then have unexpected surprises and pop-up memories around the house.

 

https://radicalstroud.co.uk/wiltshire-walking-with-edward-thomas/

 

 

 

Walking and Cycling and Pop-up Museums

To see a World in a Grain of Sand,
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an Hour.

As mentioned in the previous chapter, Blake’s lines have become something of a Radical Stroud motif for a number of reasons.

But this is the fundamental reason:

I started writing A Guide to the Radical History of Stroud and the Five Valleys around 2011, with a narrative history occasionally touched by a comedic Mark Steele/ Mark Thomas style of analysis. A visit to the Writing Britain exhibition at the British Library completely changed my approach: no more the lonely writer in the garret burning the midnight oil trope. Instead, collaborative writing on the hoof: ‘Footprints and Footpaths not Footnotes.’

And, also, collaborative texts revealing the extraordinary within the ordinary, in an EP Thompson quest (The Making of the English Working Class): rescuing ‘the poor and anonymous from the enormous condescension of posterity.’ A Blakean optic not just upon the landscape but on social history too.

And that approach led me to a free verse style of writing up my/our walks and the recording of my historical research and consequent blogging: it enabled quick scribbling and composing but with a touch of figurative style. (I include a guide for this approach in a link at the end of this piece.)

I read around psychogeography, the Paris Situationists (‘Underneath the pavement, the beach!’ another of our motifs), Rebecca Solnit, William Hazlitt, Richard Jefferies, Edward Thomas, Phil Smith, et al so as to contextualise my walking through landscape and history: ‘slipping through wormholes of time.’

But now, all roads lead to Edward Thomas.

And Richard Jefferies.

Edward Thomas on Walking and Cycling
Richard Jefferies on Walking

Bike or boots?

Bikes or boots? A difficult question sometimes, and an obvious one at others. I suppose, it’s a question of what you fancy, or a matter of where you want to travel, or how far, or how much time you have: whether you want to wander across fields, or pursue a path along lanes, or up a succession of hills, and down the consequent dales. Or what you did yesterday.

This is how Edward Thomas compared the two pursuits in 1913 In Pursuit of Spring:

‘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.’

‘Under elms near Semington the threshing machine boomed, it’s unchanging note mingled with a hiss of the addition of each sheaf. Otherwise, the earth was the rooks’, heaven was the larks’; and I rode easily on along the good road somewhere between the two.
Motion was extraordinarily easy that afternoon, and I had no doubts that I did well to bicycle instead of walking. It was as easy as riding in a cart, and more satisfying to the restless … At the same time, I was a great deal nearer to being a disembodied spirit than I can often be. No people or thoughts embarrassed me. I fed through the senses directly … through the eyes chiefly, and was happier than is explicable … a foretaste of a sort of imprisonment in the viewless winds.’

Robert Macfarlane writes in the introduction to The South Country that ‘Edward Thomas was a compulsive walker’, and mentions Helen Thomas’ assertion that “His greatest pleasure … was to walk and be alone”, spurning roads, often walking in a circle for a whole day, without a map, “guided by the hills or the sun”. Macfarlane argues that Thomas prefigures the Situationists, ‘pioneering the walk as an art-act, as artefact.’

 Helen Thomas wrote in the preface to the 1932 edition of The South Country (first published 1909): “for him the most satisfying days were when he wandered far afield alone, rereading forgotten footpaths and hidden lanes, stopping at remote and primitive inns where strangers were rare … to Edward Thomas walking was not merely exercise … Nor was he … only the nature lover intent on observing … Nor was he only the aesthete … the beauty of the contours of the hills, the symmetry of the trees, and the grouping of the villages. Nor was he only the wayfarer meeting fellow travellers … talking … listening… Nor was he only the artist transmuting all this into words. He was all these and much more.”

This is Edward Thomas near the start of the book: ‘I have used a good many maps in my time, largely to avoid the towns; but I confess that I prefer to do without them and to go, if I have some days before me, guided by the hills or the sun or a stream – or, if I have one day only, in a rough circle, trusting, by taking a series of turnings to the left or a series to the right … and to return at last to my starting-point … The signboards thus often astonish me … There is a wealth of poetry in them …’

Another Wiltshire walker is of interest here: Richard Jefferies in his book The Amateur Poacher:

‘Those only know a country who are acquainted with its footpaths. By the roads, indeed, the outside may be seen, but the footpaths go through the heart of the land. There are routes by which mile after mile may be travelled without leaving the sward … village to village, now crossing green meads, now cornfields, over brooks, past woods, through farmyards…’

Macfarlane argues that Thomas prefigures the Situationists,

 ‘Pioneering the walk as an art-act, as artefact.’

 Well, that sort of sounds like walking as a pop-up museum in a way, doesn’t it?

More to follow on Edward Thomas later.

https://radicalstroud.co.uk/creative-writing-guide/

 

 

 

 

Walking a Pop-up Museum

I’ve been giving a question some thought: Can a walk (be it themed and purposeful or just ad hoc recreational) not only create a pop-up museum, in consequence, when back at home (individually and/or collectively), but also create a mobile pop-up museum itself whilst in the very act of walking?

Sometimes, of course, this happens automatically, serendipitously and solipsistically, when you’re out and about: that Penny Lane feeling: “And though she feels as if she’s in a play, she is anyway”, and that Truman Show illusion you get sometimes when staring at the world.

In short, when you’re Feeling Groovy, life seems to be a sort of pop-up museum … “Hello lamp-post, what you knowin’, I’ve come to watch your flowers growin’…” And you can get that flight of individual imagination whilst out walking in a group, too, of course, as well as on a solitary ramble …

I tend to drift in and out of company while out on a group-walk; in the main, I like to let my thoughts roam free and unconstrained, making unusual connections and correspondences; but, obviously, and on the other hand, we learn a lot from conversation too: ‘Every day’s a school day’ – surely, it’s only the arrogant fool who believe they know absolutely everything …

William Hazlitt, however,  wrote a wonderful essay on the joys of solitary rambling back in the early 19th century. It’s food for thought.

Where do you stand on walking and talking?
On rambling and ranting?
On orating and hiking?
I’m more of a Hazlitt strider myself:

‘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 … “Let me have a companion of my way,” says Sterne, “were it but to remark how the shadows lengthen as the sun declines.” It is beautifully said: but, in my opinion, this continual comparing of notes interferes with the involuntary impression of things upon the mind, and hurts the sentiment … ‘

I know what Hazlitt means:
Wordsworthian pantheism,
Or William Blake flights of fancy,
Or psycho-geographical musing,
Or Zen-style footfall mindfulness,
Are often inhibited by the clang of voices,
And the din of conversation;
But on other occasions, it’s true
That the knowledge of a companion
Can act as a stimulus to a new understanding,
Or a novel re-creation of a landscape;
And, sometimes, of course, we need to catch up
On ‘news’ with friends or family –
It is all, I suppose, a matter of balance:
A dynamic harmony of opposites
Help make for an enriching walk in company –
Sometimes alone, and sometimes alive
To conviviality and congeniality,
And sometimes finding empathy,
Shared meanings and understanding
When exploring the land in shared silence –
Followed by a post-ramble sharing
Of individual and collective experience
In mutual discourse on how we read our walk,
A deconstruction and re-creation
Of how we made sense of it all;
For as William Hazlitt put it:

‘I am for the synthetical method on a journey in preference to the analytical. I am content to lay in a stock of ideas then, and to examine and anatomise them afterwards. I want to see my vague notions float like the down of the thistle before the breeze, and not to have them entangled in the briars and thorns …’

Well said, William.

But it’s time now to return to pop-up museums. Let’s remind ourselves of what a pop-up museum is so that we can properly assess whether a walk fits the bill. What exactly is a pop-up museum? This is the definition we work with at Radical Stroud: a temporary exhibition carefully curated, but with changing displays created by visitors with a widening circle of participants: a sort of curated happening but with serendipitous happenstance: an inclusive community show and tell with artefacts and memories and texts and photos and artwork.

 

Well, a walk is certainly temporary; exhibits can include maps, photographs of the route from the past, documents, texts, artefacts carried in rucksacks etc.; the display obviously changes as the walk unfolds, and conversation adds to the mix; then talking with strangers and people you meet along the way widens the circle of participants; there might be information boards and plaques along the way, and we sometimes have a bit of performance on a walk – so it certainly can be ‘a sort of curated happening but with serendipitous happenstance: an inclusive community show and tell with artefacts and memories and texts and photos and artwork.’

 

We can all learn, of course, from the walking practices of different people and groups. When I accompanied Walking the Land, their practice often involved silent walking with occasional breaks for sketching, photography, writing, recording, video and so on. I often take photos not for social media but as an aide memoire for writing up later – I deliberately avoid making notes so as to strengthen my powers of recall. I write long hand at home first of all: I feel that my mind is more creative and lateral when not circumscribed by the linear A-Z keyboard of my computer.

When on seaside walks with my family, I collect driftwood, and pen lines about the day. Some we leave around the house or in the garden as surprise ‘theatres of memory’ while there is also the joy of seeing pieces in my daughters’ homes celebrating the birth of their children. Stroud railway station has an information board that echoes those acts of creation: NATURE WEAVING

When you next go out on a walk make a collection of natural items that you find interesting. These could be twigs, bark and leaves and fallen feathers. If you have some additional items such as wool at home use these too.

When you are at home make yourself an easy weaving board out of thick cardboard and carefully cut some matching slots at the top and the bottom of the card (about A5 size).

Next, take a long length of wool or string and wrap it around the slots … Once you have completed wrapping the wool around the cardboard start adding your finds from your walk and any additional materials you may have at home.

Attach the items by putting them under and over alternate threads on the board … do the same with pieces of wool or anything else you would like to add.

Charlotte Rooney is a colleague who is also worth following when out on a walk:

“I have always been a bit of a magpie when out and about, unable to resist picking up anything that catches my eye – leaves, feathers, sticks, stones, bits of rusty metal. Sometimes these things form the basis of simple creations or photos or ‘organisings’ that I make when I get home.

It’s hard to deconstruct what feels like such an instinctive, organic act – I hesitate even to call it a practice, it’s just what I do.  If pushed, I would say that there’s something in the act of walking – as many artists and writers will attest to – that allows for untethered thought, a state of mind that enables loose connections to be made, for the subconscious to churn away doing its thing. Maybe this informs what I collect. Certainly, if I am walking with a theme or intent in mind, it shapes what catches my eye, what commands my attention, though just as often the connections are only apparent when I get home, sift through my haul, let my hands and mind wander over the objects I unearth from pockets and bag.

In this way, at the end of a walk I’ve often assembled a miniature, ephemeral, temporary cabinet of curiosities – items that are assembled randomly for the love of the things themselves and their intrinsic, aesthetic beauty – but for all that, sometimes a coherent story can arise from the collection even if was not the collector’s intent.”

And now some words from another colleague: KATIE MCCUE:

‘A corner of a path turned, a brow of a hill reached, a sweeping vista revealed, a secret glade beckoning.

Whether experiencing the joys of a flaneur or being guided by those who now more than I will ever know, (of history, geology, politics or nature) … I see in my own way.

Now seeing is different to looking and my way of seeing is full of shape, colour, movement, light & dark whether macroscopic or microscopic.

Seeing is a feeling thing and an act of creation in itself, it’s an inspiration that often fills me with a need to write or paint or draw.

A guided walk triggers my imagination to people the landscape with folk from the past. I see the men and women of pre-history before our valleys were formed by se and glaciers. I see the medieval farmers in ancient fields, I see the workers and weavers, I see laughing Victorian children paddling in streams, I see the tired eyes of children working in the mills.

These same images can come to mind when I wander as a flaneur with no particular plan in mind. However, it is these walks that truly make my soul sing & my eyes drink in the sight of an insect, the pattern of grasses in the wind, the way the light filters through trees when I stand so small beneath the canopy looking up.

I see in my own way. It feeds my creativity.’

That mention of creativity by Katie reminds me of the notion of writing your own heritage trails – old railway lines offer such scope for industrial archaeology, oral history/memory collection, Shelleyesque Ozymandian reflection, and also William Blake’s doors of perception.

I begin with industrial archaeology at the site of the old Dudbridge railway station in Stroud. These are my words for the nascent heritage trail on the branch line to Nailsworth:

Dudbridge Railway Station

I often walk the cycle track below Rodborough Hill,
The old Midland Railway spur from Dudbridge,
And I often cycle the track on to Nailsworth,
Musing on the springs and watercourses, the ancient holloways,
The Roman villa, medieval ridge and furrow, the woollen mills,
The occasional mill chimney, still rising high into the Stroudwater sky.

But, today, I stand at the blue brick retaining wall

At the old Dudbridge railway station,

Watching the cars career around the roundabout,

Drivers mostly oblivious of the history of Dudbridge;

But when I ignore the roar of the traffic,

And I find my mind’s historical eye,

I can see a medieval pilgrim crossing the bridge,

A packhorse with Cotswold wool a mile behind.

For here I stand by the confluence of two rivers.

But also, at the junction of two railway lines:

The interface of water power and steam power,

The inexorable march of the industrial revolution:

Foundries and forges and furnaces

And cranes and pulleys and chains and smoke:

A century-old pandemonium at Dudbridge,

Where once there was an orchard and there is still a Meadow Lane.

Carefully cross the road and study the information plaques

On the wall at Sainsburys; the clothier’s 1646 doorway too;

The inscription at REDLERS from 1910;

The information board at Kimmins Mill,

Then retrace your steps carefully back to the blue brick wall,

And recite these words from T.S. Eliot to yourself:
“And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.”

Now for Ozymandias (and the industrial relics on the cycle track spur of the Nailsworth line running from Stroud through Rodborough to Dudbridge):

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

 

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

It’s a motif that runs through much of my rambling.

But it’s getting to the point where I need to conclude this opening chapter. This essay is turning (indeliberately) into a self-referential piece of writing: the piece is almost turning into a performative pop-up museum itself. Time to stop before I get carried away with myself. I’ll finish with a nod to William Blake which will add as a bridge to the next post on this subject.

‘To see a World in Grain of Sand,

And Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,

And Eternity in an hour.’

It’s another motif.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stroud General Strike Exhibition

Hello there,

This is for anyone who has read the General Strike 100 May newsletter and is thinking of visiting the Radical Stroud exhibition. The exhibition (some of it anyway) is now on at the famous and enchanting pub, The Prince Albert. If you fancy a visit, I guarantee you won’t regret it. Have a scroll around this  website and you will also see a guise for walking around some of the key sites in Stroud associated with the General Strike with a few explanatory words for historical context.

Hope to see you.

Swindon and the General Strike

Swindon and the General Strike

Factory walls can sometimes feel like prison walls,

But I always thought the Factory walls in Swindon

Had a welcoming, warm and friendly feel,

Even in the low sun days of midwinter.

For this was a railway town,

A Great Western Railway Company town,

A paternalistic railway company town,

With swimming baths and a hospital,

And a blue print for the NHS;

A Park for exercise and amusement too,

And the Mechanics Institute

For education, reading and advancement.

The largest engineering works in Western Europe,

310 acres, 14,000 employees,

Two railway stations:

Over 50 million tons of coal passed through Swindon each year:

one fifth of the country’s annual output.

But when I started train spotting, aged six,

In that halcyon summer of 1958,

With my in-built respect for the GWR,

And its Western Region successor,

And all its chocolate and cream nostalgia,

How could I have known about the General Strike,

In Swindon, thirty-two years before?

When we placed pennies on the line,

To see how the Cheltenham Flyer

Would burnish and flatten those spare coins,

And when Sir Felix Pole, Castle class, 5066,

Rode rough shod over those pennies,

How could I have known that Sir Felix

Was a real person from thirty-two years before?

The vindictive GWR General Manager during the General Strike?

To a boy in 1958,

1926 was more like the nineteenth century,

…

But on Sunday, 2 May 1926, there were two contrasting events in Swindon: the Archdeacon, Dr. Talbot, preached a sermon strongly condemning a strike; the Trades Council’s second Council of Action conference worked out agreed responsibilities for the conduct of the strike in Swindon to be put to mass meetings … they moved solidly and enthusiastically into action.

 

And the strike started solidly in Swindon:

With a meeting of 6,000 in the GWR Park. ‘Telegrams from one union after another were read out’ and this resolution passed: “That this mass meeting of trade unionists pledges itself to carry out the instructions of their executive committees and any duties their local committee may call upon them to do, and to act in no way that would lead to any disturbance.”

 

Mass meetings of those on strike AND their families followed, with thousands in the GWR Park and an array of recreational and educational activities: football and cricket matches; bowls and darts competitions; concerts, socials and literary events while the Swindon ‘General Council’ dealt with the daily demands of overseeing permits, pickets, speakers etc.

 

In fact, the strike was so solid that pickets were barely needed,

And with the trams and power station municipally owned,

The mayor declared that no trams would run

And fuses would be removed from the main industrial enterprises.

But an irate Town Clerk sent a report to the Civil Commissioner for the South Midlands district, Major the Rt. Hon Earl Winterton MP who ordered an investigation ‘as the condition of affairs there was serious.’ The mayor told the official that if power were restored probably all the workers at the power station would come out and ‘the town would be plunged into darkness,’ Fourteen naval pensioners were eventually recruited from Portsmouth to break any strike if it should occur at the power station.

 

But resentment would grow in the town

After an official GWR notice was put up

At the Temple Street NUR HQ;

The notice politicised the strike

As ‘a deep conspiracy against the state’;

And as regards railway re-employment

after the strike’s eventual end:

Loss of position, status, pay,

With the threat of damages, costs, and the sack

For leading trade unionists;

A mass meeting in the GWR Park followed.

Sir Felix Pole regarded the strike meetings held in the park

And the picketing at the main entrance to the railway works

As trespassing on company land.

And he no doubt felt elated when he heard that

The Reverend K Crisford, the curate at St Marks Church by the railway line

Who preached a sermon against the railway companies

and the Government and supported the strikers.

And who after the service walked to the park in his cassock and surplice

to address a massed strike meeting.

was forced to leave his post after the strike had ended,

The only member of the established church’s clergy to openly support the miners.

And how could I have known about all of this,

When one of the first songs I learned at my mother’s knee

Followed these railway lines:

‘Down at the station,

Early in the morning,

See the little engines

All in a row,

Man with a green flag,

Blows upon his whistle,

Peep, peep, peep,

And away we go’.

There was another version in 1926,

Which lampooned the upper-class strike breaking train drivers:

Bristol Bulletin ‘To Heaven by the LMS’

Early in the morning, per broadcast from London,

See the little puff-puffs all in a row,

D’Arcy on the engine, pulled a little lever,

Expansion of the boiler – UP WE GO!’

But down at Swindon Railway Works,

There were equally extraordinary scenes,

With the famous WA Stanier, Works manager,

Wielding a hose pipe to inundate

 

Apprentices who went on strike at the tunnel entrance,

(He was the model for the Rev Awdry’s fat controller btw)

And CB Collett, Chief Mechanical Engineer,

Would issue this notice:

‘In view of the large number of men who have failed to report themselves

for duty these works are hereby closed until further notice’;

It wasn’t just the GWR, of course;

Swindon printers and tram workers were also stopped work on Monday May 3

On the first wave of industrial action;

The Co-operative Society rooms in Harding Street

Became an HQ for coordination of picketing,

And accounting of the Distress Fund, for fully 10,000 people,

By the Swindon Central Strike Committee aka “The General Council”:

‘Magnificent solidarity’ was the initial synopsis;

“United action is our watchword.”

On the other side, there stood, resolute,

The Swindon Volunteer Services Committee;

Whilst troops and police were offered to the GWR;

But Collett informed the Swindon NUR branch:

‘I don’t want them. If you gentlemen sitting here are prepared

to assist me in protecting the property,

I am prepared to do without them.’

The NUR replied:

‘We at once gave him that guarantee.’

Beyond the railway works,

Disagreement and confusion simmered

Over the withdrawal of the electricity supply,

But despite this,

The Swindon Advertiser commented on May14th:

‘The town has been very quiet and orderly.

The police have had no trouble whatsoever’:

Despite, or probably, because of

The daily round of mass meetings in the parks,

The sports matches, the tournaments,

The concerts, the readings, the entertainments …

It was a peculiarly British general strike in Swindon, too …

A few GWR trains began to run through Swindon,

partly due to the Oxford plus four brigade. ‘I say, rather.’

Only nine drivers broke the strike in Swindon.

Fireman Taylor had the idea of treating them as though they were dead, having a mock funeral procession and cremation on the Corporation rubbish tip.

And so, in a Swindonian version

Of the old Skimmington cavalcade,

Whereby transgressors of a local moral code

Were lampooned in effigy and with rough music,

Some strike breakers were honoured with a procession:

A mock funeral cortege that wound its way

To the council rubbish tip for ‘cremation’;

The coffins, made by firemen, were embellished,

By wives, mothers, daughters, grand-mothers and aunts,

With curtains or cloth, and wreaths of nettles

And dandelions for floral decoration;

The cortege was followed by some thousand people,

While every street showed its approbation:

‘Of course, when we called with a coffin all the neighbours came out.

They were delighted! We had no trouble with any of them;

almost everyone in those streets had someone on strike themselves.

We had the whole population with us in the demonstration.’

With the police granting permission

And controlling the traffic

Around ‘Manchester Road, the Centre and down by The Ship’;

Traditional rough music:

The death knell created with an iron monger’s shop sign,

a trowel and a four-foot long set square.

A mock undertaker in top hat, long tail coat,

black gloves and striped trousers led the cortège

A derisive cacophony and pandemonium,

Greeted the cortege on its way to Morris Street,

And mock funeral service and cremation:

‘At each home [of a strikebreaker] when we knocked we told them we’d come to take them for a ride, and that if they didn’t come with us we’d have the pleasure of burying them.’  ‘A woman came out of her shop to give them two gallons of paraffin for the cremation. Joe Baldwin, a train driver, borrowed a white table cloth from a lady in the street, and dressed in this as a surplice he said a burial service over the nine coffins.

As he set fire to them his last words were

‘May the wind blow their remains to the corners of the earth,

And to hell with them all’.

Cars, motor-cycles, side cars and bicycles

Were also used to transport the British Worker

And TUC strike bulletins down to Swindon,

While Friday May 7th would see a report to the TUC,

After the famous Ben Tillett addressed a large rally in the town:

‘Position at Swindon splendid.

Spirit … 100%.

Any other national leaders coming this way

we shall be pleased to accommodate.

Demand for larger supplies of British Worker.

Our lines of communication … excellent.

We have made certain arrangements for your despatch riders to obtain petrol. The CWS here have fixed us up splendid.’

‘The townsfolk got the news from the daily mass meetings of thousands in the GWR Park. It was like a Labour Fete every day.

As regards the Swindon and Wiltshire press,

The Evening Advertiser was a single-sheet,

And British Gazette in tone and some content;

The North Wilts Herald would later fulminate

About the withdrawal of the fuses at Moredon power station,

And consequent immobilisation of the printing presses:

‘a desperate step to stifle the freedom of the press’

‘an amazing action in which Swindon,

so far as we have been able to ascertain,

stands alone among all the civic authorities of the country’;

People didn’t stand alone on the Milk Bank

by the railway station, however;

Crowds would jeer as volunteers drove passing trains,

With women to the fore, aprons full of stones,

To lob at strike breaking footplatemen;

Some striking footplatemen also secretly planned to grease inclines

to make firing and driving more difficult.

But money was tight with strike pay low,

And none at all for those not called out until the second wave,

But unable to work because of the impact of the first wave,

With shortage of fuel or the removal of fuses or lack of transport

That rainy day had arrived for that money put by,

‘Feeding Centres’ and the Coop Distress Fund provided succour for some

Teachers commented on hunger facing large families.

‘Put your heads down on the desks and close your eyes:

“Hands up who didn’t have breakfast this morning?”

And some churches and chapels helped out too,

Despite the GWR notice of Monday May 10th,

Describing the strike as a ‘deep conspiracy’,

Not against the company, but ‘against the state’;

A notice as intransigent and uncompromising

As the one put up outside the NUR Temple Street HQ,

With its conditions about employees returning to work,

And consequent penalties.

In according and predictable consequence,

There was a mass meeting in the railway park,

While the government stiffened its resolve,

And, locally, the mayor was forced to give in,

With the arrival of those twelve naval pensioners,

Fuses were restored with plans for trams to go on the streets staffed by volunteers

More mass meetings followed:

At the GWR Park; and at the Mechanics Institute:

‘one of the finest meetings ever held,

the hall being packed to excess and the members very enthusiastic’.

Another meeting followed at the Princess Street Recreation Ground;

The second wave of strikes was called out,

with another ‘mass meeting of members as soon as possible

and that the wives of members be invited’.

The strike was rock solid both in Swindon and on the GWR:

20,000 men and women not at work in the town and surrounding villages. Discussions continued at the Swindon General Council about what to do about the naval pensioners and the volunteers on the trams

 

So, it was a bolt from the blue on Wednesday 12th May:

The General Strike was called off.

On the afternoon of Wednesday May 12, Bill Sargent was on Railway Clerk picket duty outside the Mechanics Institute: ‘Someone dashed across from the Park saying that they had heard on the one o’clock news that the strike was over. Of course, we knew that the employers must have given in and that we’d won the victory.’

 

Victory was presumed at first,

Until the full facts came through in the afternoon.

A meeting was called for the next day at the Park:

GWR employees would stay out

In the face of Sir Felix Pole’s obduracy …

But this talk has to stay within its 25 minutes and so will deal with the nine days only … And so, to conclude … with some personal stories …

Some strikebreakers were veterans but Harry Avern, 26 and with four children, couldn’t resist the offer of a permanent job from the running shed foreman if he would act as a fireman. He faced a hail of stones near Reading and returning from Paddington he was landed with an aristocratic driver who left them stuck in Box Tunnel devoid of steam. Harry didn’t get a permanent job, ‘all he got was an illuminated certificate for strike breaking, and a [guinea] postal order from a grateful GWR.’

And the final conclusion:

The Swindon Advertiser commented that ‘the men and women on strike whose hearts were in the strike comprised an infinitesimal proportion of the whole.’ But the veteran Swindon socialist orator, Reuben George commented that ‘Spiritual life is higher… now for Wherever the men met, the voice of the politician and sectarian was hushed. There were Liberals, Tories, Labour Socialists, Church, Chapel, Roman Catholics, Unitarians, Salvationists; men of strong political and sectarian bias and men of none whatsoever… These men and women met as one. They spoke from the various platforms. They joined in the work of organisation; and what is more and greater than all, they forgot all Party bitterness and sectarian strife. They threw themselves wholeheartedly into the question of help for the miners.’ Swindon Advertiser 18 June 1926

The GWR and the General Strike C.R. Potts Oakwood Press

The General Strike ed. Jeffey Skelley Lawrence & Wishart especially chapter 9 on Swindon by Angela Tucket

The General Strike Day by Day Keith Laybourn Sutton Publishing

 

 

 

The Bespectacled Historian and the Blue Plaques

The bespectacled historian has had a good idea.

Stuart (for it is he) said, “Why don’t we have a train ride and a bus ride and a walk and conjoin the Rev Awdry blue plaques at Rodborough and Box?”

Everyone said it was a great notion and so they made a plan.

Some would meet at Rodborough Avenue to view the first plaque and then catch the 9.34 to Swindon, change there for Bath, then catch the bus to Box. Others said that they would drive to Box and meet the throng there.

“What a splendid way to celebrate the Reverend Awdry,” Katie announced.

“And the GWR, too, of course,” Bob added.

The morning of Thursday February 5th 2026 was dark and stormy. But snowdrops lit a path to spring and a robin trilled in the churchyard as the bespectacled historian made his way to the Rev Awdry’s grave at Rodborough.

The bespectacled historian – not in shorts today – tightened his hood against the wind and the rain and descended down to Rodborough Avenue to the first blue plaque of the day.

Here he met the rather wonderful Dorcas. The only person Stuart had met with that name before was from the deep, deep past in deepest Wiltshire and when Stuart mentioned that to Dorcas, she exclaimed, “My great-grandmother was from Wiltshire and she was named Dorcas too.”

There was a pause: “It was an open-air baptism.”

This was the stuff of Thomas Hardy and Richard Jefferies, thought Stuart, as Dorcas carried on, garrulously, “I found out about this walk online and was curious to find out about it. I’m a good walker. The other day I walked from Whitminster to Stroud – I’m from Longlevens in fact – and in the shop doorway in Stroud was a Thomas the Tank Engine book. So, I thought this is a sign. This is meant to be.”

They made their way down towards the railway station through the mud and the mire. Dorcas began to think that she couldn’t face a five-mile trudge through the fields around Box as the rain continued to pour. She decided that she would spend the day in Rodborough and visit the Awdry grave.

Stuart explained how to find the grave and the stained-glass window as they bade farewell. Dorcas entered a café whilst the bespectacled historian turned the corner towards the station.

There was an ominous gathering of wayfarers there laded with suitcases and rucksacks – that augured ill, thought the bespectacled historian.

And sure enough.

Trains were cancelled every way which way.

A break-down on the line.

Not floods in Sapperton Tunnel or embankments slipping…but that might well happen again in this relentless windswept rain.

The bespectacled historian was stricken with a head-cold so perhaps this was a blessing in disguise, he thought, despite losing money on his ticket.

He informed friends and colleagues as well as he could, hoping that no-one would drive to Bath or Box in this inclement weather awaiting his arrival and feeling consequently angry at his absence.

He decided that he would reschedule the walk for later in the year when the sun might hopefully shine. And, after all, he thought, he had already led a group on the Box blue plaque walk in the late spring last year.

But what if the sun refused to shine and the rain continued to fall …

He thought again: if people followed this link, then they could walk around Box themselves without any need for the bespectacled historian’s presence …

https://www.colerne-pc.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/20200319-Box-Heritage-Trail-Interactive-Map.pdf

And so he sent this telegram.

A Stroudwater 1825 Weavers’ Riots Détournement

 

Wallbridge Mill ST 848050

Nathaniel Watts first introduced the flying shuttle here in the 1790s – the start of mechanisation.

 

 

Ham Mill SO 861032

Jennifer Tann Wool and Water: ‘Ham Mill was a focus of the weavers’ riots in 1825.’ 31.5.25 Edwin Perrin suspected of working for the Marlings at too low a price. When he was at Ham Mill, he faced the collective wrath of some 200 weavers. On June 2nd, 600-700 weavers marched to Ham Mill. One of Marling’s men ended up in the brook but the next marked man managed (with poetic (in)justice) to hide in the Counting House.

 

Vatch Mill SO 872066

June 3rd: 200 weavers, some of whom ‘held sticks over the heads of Mr Peter Wyatt and Mr George L Wyatt, and threatened to knock out their brains and to destroy the mill.’ The next day saw 3,000 gathered; unfinished cloth woven below rates seized.

 

Bliss Mill SO 893025 Tayloe’s Mill 892025 Tann: ‘Little survives of Bliss Mill, save part of the clock tower.’ The Company Arms/Coffee Tavern Chalford GL6 8NS Three gabled Cotswold stone building once linked with the East India Company. A Troop of Horse sent by magistrates after tumult at Chalford: the soldiers ‘were stationed between Blisse and Tayloe Mills and their horses were stabled by the Coffee tavern/the Company’s Arms.’ Weaving in the Stroud Valley during the 19th Century by A. Phelps.

 

Longfords Mill ST 867992

  1. Jones Graeme, Major 10th Royal Hussars, Bristol ‘…William Playne, Longfords Mill, Minchinhampton from Stroud visited on me this morning to report serious event outrages which had occurred near Stroud … I think it is my duty to make this communication to you, Sir, and to request that you should let me be furnished with instructions on the subject from His Royal Highness the Commander in Chief …’

 

Cainscross The lake at the lawn opposite Tricorn House?

‘The cessation from labour commenced on Friday 29th April and on the Monday following the weavers assembled in considerable numbers at Cainscross where they were met by several of the Manufacturers: but not coming to any satisfactory arrangement shuttles to the amount of several hundred were instantly collected’.

 

Break Heart Hill Stinchcombe Road Dursley GL11 6ER and Stinchcombe Hill and Nympsfield

Meetings of more than 3000 weavers were held on subsequent days on Break Heart and Stinchcombe Hills and on Monday last they congregated on Selsley Hill to the number of not less than 6000 … On each of these occasions several of their employers agreed to advance the prices but a number sufficient to satisfy the weavers not having yet consented to their terms another meeting was held on Wednesday last at

Nympsfield when deputations of workmen from several parishes attended and it was strenuously urged that they should resume their labour for those Gentlemen inclined to accede to the new prices. The majority however obstinately resisted this reasonable proposition until the whole of the Manufacturers had expressed their compliance and the business consequently remains unsettled. But it is justly due to the weavers to add that their conduct throughout has been orderly and respectful to their superiors and they gained general approbation by their quiet and peaceable demeanour even when assembled in the greatest numbers.’

‘Manufacturers presented a written request’ to Justices of the Peace for an address to the Home Secretary for ‘a body of Military to be stationed in the Neighbourhood to assist the Civil Power in protecting their property.’

 

Stafford Mill SO 859038 Hyde Court (Chalford) Brimscombe Mills SO 866024 Henry Wyatt & Co Vatch Mills Bowbridge Mills ST 857043 Ham Mills.

The ‘Woollen Manufacturers’ who signed this representation were William Stanton & Sons Stafford Mill SO 859038 Robert P Pelly Hyde Court (Chalford) Harris Stephen & Co Willam Lewis Brimscombe Mills SO 866024 Henry Wyatt & Co Vatch Mills Geo. Lewis Brimscombe Mills Jos. Partdidge & Co Bowbridge Mills ST 857043 Wm. Jn. Wood Chas. Glover Wm. Marling & Son Ham Mills.

 

Spillmans Court Rodborough GL5 3RU

Letter from the Justices of the Peace, Henry Burgh and Peter Hawker, to the Home Office. ‘…the weavers are soon become so violent that we think it almost impossible to have an Offender lodged in safe custody without military assistance … Manufacturers consider all their property in most imminent danger…’

June 15th: Henry Burgh’s letter to the Home Secretary: “on Tuesday the 7th large quantities of weavers, masons and others assembled and proceeded to many acts of violence, which obliged me to read the Proclamation against tumultuous assemblies.” The assembly did not disperse, however, “and having thrown stones at the Military as well as those who had come forward to assist the Civil Power,” the troops were “requested” to “disperse” the assembly “which was effectively done in a short time in as humane manner as possible.” Several were arrested and some “committed to Gloucester Gaol.”

He went on to say that he had printed a notice “to convince the People that the Combination Laws are not repealed and I have put it into execution against several Weavers and Masons for intimidating Workmen. The county is now quiet …” He adds that appeals for help, sent by the weavers to Wiltshire, the districts around Wotton-under-Edge, Dursley and Uley, have received no support.

 

Stroud

4.6.25 P Wyatt of Vatch Mills was ‘assaulted by a mob’ in front of the Magistrates Office. (Old Town Hall, The Shambles)

7.6.25: ‘the mob was as great as on the preceding day and committed many acts of violence. Some acts of intimidation were also committed by Masons towards others of their trade who had not struck for wages.’

Bristol June 7th 1825

‘Sir … I received orders yesterday morning … to detach one squadron of the regiment under my command to Stroud which was immediately carried into effect. I suppose it arrived at Stroud by 8 o’clock last night.’ T. Jones Graeme, Major 10th Royal Hussars

 

June 8th 1825 J.C. Wallington, Captain commanding detachment Royal Hussars: ‘the squadron under my command was called out yesterday evening to disperse a mob collected in the town, which proceeded to acts of violence. We accomplished this object with some trouble including the slash of the sword only. We made prisoners of some of the most disorderly, no accident occurred.’

 

“On the 10th of June a paper was vended at Stroud signed ‘The True British Weavers’ purporting to be a relation of events that had lately occurred in the Neighbourhood respecting the Weavers and the Clothiers – the paper had no Printer’s name on it – the vendor of the paper (Henry Beeseley) was apprehended and committed to prison as a vagrant.”

John Williams D.D. Minister of Stroud, Gloucestershire to the Home Secretary asking for clemency to be shown to William Fitting, serving three months imprisonment at Horsley with hard labour:

‘On the Saturday preceding the arrival of the Cavalry, there were about 2,000 weavers assembled in the Town, and a very large concourse of them, before the door of the Clerk of the Magistrates, demanding the release of prisoners … On enquiring, I found that the prisoners were dismissed respecting whom the tumult was made, as the aggression was on the part of the Master rather than the Men.’

Mr Holbrow’s fish pond Badbrook mill pond was Mr Holbrow’s fishpond in 1825. The road and bus station by cinema and Five Valleys shopping centre are there now

4.6.25 members of the ‘mob’ ducked a number of their opponents ‘in Mr Holbrow’s fish pond’‘

Saint Monday’, June 6th ‘at Stroud a mob of about 2,000 continued to duck persons in Mr Holbrow’s fish pond’.

 

Chalford

‘I despatched Lieutenant Dent with 20 men to Chalford … to protect a factory which the mob had threatened to destroy … This morning I have sent another party with the High Constable to execute warrants against some of the ringleaders. The town seems perfectly quiet today … The Clothiers met yesterday and agreed to give the weavers the increase of price they demanded. The Masons, Carpenters and Millwrights have also struck for more wages.’

13.6.25 The Gloucester Journal

‘JOHN RUDGE weaver OBADIAN GARDINER weaver ENOCH WEAR weaver NATHAN PEARSE weaver ENOCH STEPHENS weaver JAMES BAXTER jun weaver JOHN TURK weaver SAMUEL GARDINER weaver JOHN STEPHENS weaver JOSEPH HUNT weaver THOMAS HUNT weaver THOMAS STEPHENS jun weaver JAMES CROOK weaver AMOS HUNT weaver JOHN BARTLETT weaver JANO CORNISH weaver WILLIAM POULSON weaver

The above persons are charged upon Oath with having on Thursday 2nd June and on several successive days riotously and tumultuously assembled together at Chalford in the Parish of Bisley and Minchinhampton in this county and in Company with many others at present unknown committed acts of violence whereby several Individuals were much injured and the Peace of the Neighbourhood greatly disturbed.’

 

The Brook Nailsworth Bridge Street? The deepest part after the three steams have joined?

‘Saint Monday’, June 6th, saw weavers who undercut ducked in ‘the Brook in Nailsworth bottom by a large mob’.

 

 

 

Horsley Gaol (site at Priory Fields, Horsley)

George Fletcher Riot and assault 3 months Luke Robins ducked William Fletcher 3 months William Fitting aged & Peter Workman Riot 3 months Thomas Weir Riot and assault 3 months

 

Northleach House of Correction

Thomas Osbourne Who ducked William Clark, Also riot and assault 2 years William Pickford Riot and assault 12 months Isaac Nutt Riot and assault 12 months Joseph Mint Riot and assault 12 months

George Heskins Riot and assault 9 months Richard Preene Riot and assault 6 months

Radical Stroud is grateful for the support of UNITE 007 Gloucester Branch in putting on this and associated events, exhibitions, research, leaflets and more discursive or creative  writing. So grateful. Past and Present conjoined.

Rodborough Fields Ridge and Furrow

Rodborough Fields Ridge and Furrow

When you walk down the footpath towards Kwik Fit,

You can see a clear pattern of ridge and furrow

(‘Like corrugated fields or waves in a land-sea’),

Particularly on frosty midwinter days:

A glimpse of a world before enclosure

Parcelled up and privatised the landscape

With fences and gates and hedgerows.

But there’s nothing in the landscape to tell you

Just what this pattern of ridges and humps

In grassland, sward and pasture implies,

Or connotes: no plaque or information board

To let us know that where we tread

There was a whole different way of carrying on

From what we regard as normality today:

The tyranny of the clock and the pursuit of profit;

Instead, there was a community

Based upon sharing and mutuality.

It wasn’t just the sharing out of the strips

Of arable land in the open fields,

Or the gleaning.

The tending to and milking of a cow.

The looking out for rabbits.

The gathering of fruits, berries and nuts.

The being satisfied with that you have.

The exchanging of surplus so as to just get by.

The lending or borrowing of tools.

It wasn’t just the fuel – wood, turf, furze, bracken,

Or the crops, gleaning or grazing that gave sustenance,

It was also the community of reciprocity;

The sharing, the mutuality

That fashioned a community,

And the arranged or happenstance meeting

In field, lane, pathway, holloway, baulk or common,

And the ensuing conversation

And sharing of the time of day

(‘Good morrow, Gossip Joan,

Where have you been a-walking? …’);

And ‘wasting time’ didn’t mean laziness,

It might have been incomprehensible to the elite,

But the lower orders could have an eye for the picturesque too,

You didn’t have to be educated to have an eye for the sublime:

John Clare textualized what many saw and felt:

‘How fond the rustics ear at leisure dwells

On the soft soundings of his village bells

As on a Sunday morning at his ease

He takes his rambles just as fancys please …’

And, in a way, we carry on this tradition

On Rodborough Glebe allotments:

‘Social events, plant and seed swaps, surplus produce for food banks,

local history events, a wildflower and wildlife area’

But now we have a chance to expand this vision and practice

With the community ownership of Rodborough Fields

So, when you have a spare moment,

Follow the footpath down to Kwik Fit

Through Rodborough Fields

And glance to your right:

Let your imagination run free

As you pass the ridge and furrow

Frozen in time and space in the pasture;

Walk with the ghosts at their toil

And at their joyful recreation,

Then, if you can, contribute to the future,

Both for yourself and the community;

Keep the continuity going

That runs from medievalism to modernity:

The community ownership of Rodborough Fields.

 

 

 

 

 

An August Sunday at Rodborough Fields

Sunday August 10th 2025

You know that picture of Stroud scarlet cloth

Stretched out on tenterhooks in Rodborough Fields,

The one in the museum,

The one on the information board at the canal at Wallbridge,

The one on the information leaflets used in this campaign by this group?

This cloth I have in my hands in almost the very spot depicted in that picture,

Went all around the world: traded with the Iroquois in Hudson Bay;

Used by the East India Company in its depredations;

Known as ‘Strouds’ by First Nations Peoples

Way out west beyond the Mississippi

Long before the wagon trains started to roll out way out west to California;

The colour that clothed the British Army as the map of the world turned red,

And the sun never set on the British Empire;

The colour favoured by many enslavers on the plantations in the West Indies,

To symbolise their control and authority and to deter resistance …

And so, this cloth I have in my hands doesn’t symbolise NIMBYism:
‘Not in My Backyard’,

Instead, it symbolises a site which links the local to the national

And the local to the global:

For where we stand here, is, as it were, and so to speak,

A hub of Britain’s history that for two hundred years coloured the globe red.

But now for one final piece of local history:

This summer, 200 years ago, saw the Stroudwater Riots,

When thousands of weavers combined together

To protect their standard of living,

For red not only symbolises the wealth and prosperity of this area,

It is also a symbol of resistance,

And we remember all of those traditions today as we stand here,

And we hope to protect them too

With the community ownership of these fields.

Thank you everyone for coming today.

Thank you to all who help and contribute in the future:

The future of Rodborough Fields is now in our hands.

 

Our Next Walks

Our Next Walks

Jill Shankleman’s Weavers, Mills and Child Labour Walk on November 9th followed the canal from Ebley down to Brimscombe, with a fine attendance of over twenty rapt walkers. The enthusiasm generated there has led us to think about our next walks. We’ll confirm dates over the next few days but we are thinking about:

Weavers and Workhouse Walk in Stroud – A Christmas Carol readings too-

Saturday December 21st

Woodchester Sunday December 22nd

Weavers and Workhouse Walk in Stroud  Saturday January

Berkeley Poachers Walk in January

William Blake London walk in the spring.

More details to follow.