Chalford and the East India Company
The Golden Valley I first visited Stroud on the train in the early 1960s, pulled by a 1400 class locomotive, 1463, I think. I would study my Ian Allan trainspotter’s book or read my history books until we reached Chalford, when I would stare, mesmerized by the beauty...
Railway Rural Rides
Citizen John Thelwall, William Cobbett, and Rural Rides on the Train In the summer of 1797, when the country feared a French invasion and the Fleet mutinied at the Nore and Spithead, ‘the most dangerous man in England’, ‘that Jacobin fox’, the republican,...
Brimscombe and Heritage
Brimscombe and Heritage One night in the trenches, Ivor Gurney, the Great War poet, suddenly remembered Brimscombe: ‘One lucky hour in the middle of my tiredness I came under the pines of the sheer steep And saw the stars like steady candles gleam Above and...
Stroud Time
Stroud Time It’s a funny thing, Time, isn’t it, when you stop to think about it. And I’m not talking Einstein. Just that we measure it in so many different ways: watch, clock, phone, analogue, digital, sun, moon, religion, the seasons, calendar, years, decades, eras,...
The Hammerman Poet
Life in a Railway Factory: Alfred Williams, the Hammerman Poet Born close to Brunel’s broad gauge at South Marston, While Richard Jefferies measured the red brick growth Of New Swindon’s terraced street advance, You studied express trains from farm and field,...
Stroud to Swindon and Brunel all the Way
From Stroud to Swindon for a Football Match (Brunel All the Way) Start your journey at the Platform One Café, Coffee and croissants and Katie and Rick, 3 tables, 6 chairs, a trunk, 15 railway puzzles (Always one on the go for travellers with a brief encounter), Sundry...