DIRTY OLD STROUD
Before Stroud had a by-pass – or a Waitrose – it had a scrapyard. The Salvage and Recovery yard stretched all the way from what is now Travis Perkins to the railway viaduct, filling the space between the Stroudwater Canal and the River Frome. The official entrance was just over the canal bridge past the Bell Inn, where a rough road led off behind what was then Stroud Builders’ Merchants. A little way in, and a group of large, rusting steel sheds became visible behind a group of trees. It was about here that you began to notice the smell: a heady mix of stale oil, old grease, acid from the piles of car batteries and the dank scent of oxidising metal.
That was the official entrance, anyway. Aged 13 or 14, after school or on weekends, my friend and I were regular visitors, and we always went in through the back door. Paul lived on Horns Road, so we would wander down Field Road, cross London Road and access it that way. The view from the bottom of Field Road could not be more different from that which meets the eye today. Where now stands a Waitrose and, to the left the roundabout at the eastern end of Dr Newton’s Way, a dense thicket of ivy-covered trees emerged from a steep bank, at the bottom of which was the choked-up remnants of the old canal. Roughly where steps now lead shoppers down to the store, a tarmac track cut down to the towpath, crossing the canal on a lofty old steel bridge green with algae. At the bottom, numerous other paths meandered through the habitat-rich tangle of ash, elder, hawthorn and sycamore. One to the right headed beneath the central arch of the viaduct, then veered left down to the little footbridge over the river. Straight ahead at this point, however, was the unfenced back of the scrapyard.
The space beneath the viaduct seemed much bigger then, and not just because we were younger. There was of course no road; in fact, the canal passed beneath the arch where the by-pass now sits. Back then, scrubby bushes gradually petered out to reveal a winding hardcore track. To the right of this, on the canal side, were piles of cars awaiting the attentions of the crusher, and to the left a sea of industrial machinery. Star of the show for us was an intact mobile crane left over from the Second World War, which had become so hemmed-in by dead factory equipment and other unidentifiable metal corpses that it had so far escaped its inevitable fate. Past all this was a wide, open area in front of the steel sheds where huge hydraulic shears sat bolted down on concrete plinths, surrounded by hungry skips, and the ground was sticky with oil.
Entering the scrapyard for the first time, I’d been on edge, ready to scarper at the sound of an angry shout. But none ever came. It wasn’t at all like the scrapyard in the old Stonehouse Brickworks at Ryeford, which had padlocked steel gates covered in barbed wire and a pair of half-wild alsatians to keep people out. In Stroud, once the workers had gone home (via the Bell, no doubt), the place was a free-for-all.
Twice we found old cars parked up near the sheds – recent arrivals with the keys still in the ignition. The first one was a quaint little Austin A40. Out of curiosity I turned the key and it started, and without a word we both jumped in. I had a rough idea of how to drive a car, but I’d never actually done it. After a few stalls we finally got going, and went veering off down the bumpy track in first gear all the way to the viaduct. Here, attempting a 3-point turn, I reversed off the raised track and ended up bellying the car, which we abandoned. The second attempt was more successful. We were excited to find a 2-litre Ford Cortina estate, which after the Austin felt like a bus. I was starting to get the hang of the driving lark, and we went careening up and down, laughing like lunatics, until it ran out of petrol. My reversing skills had a long way to go, though, as I’d crunched every corner of it turning round amongst the scrap.
In the early 1980s I returned to the scrapyard armed with a camera, and was dismayed to find the place virtually cleared. The old wartime crane had finally succumbed to the cutting torch along with everything else. The processing sheds, the skips and even the massive, scary hydraulic shears had all themselves been cut up for scrap. Before long, the land had been bulldozed to make way for the desperately needed by-pass, the dreary business park and, beyond the viaduct, Stroud’s very own Waitrose. Maybe I’m looking back through rose-tinted glasses, but I preferred dirty old Stroud as it was.