A Literary, Self-referential, Post-modernist Pub Crawl
Announcing a Literary, Self-Referential, Post-Modernist Pub Crawl on Thursday – starting at The Fountain at 4.
The Fountain – The Vic – The Greyhound – The Imperial – The Lord John – The Little George.
Thirty Something Local Historic Reasons to Vote for David Drew
Thirty Local Historic Reasons to Vote for David Drew and Keep the Tories Out
Remember:
1. The Diggers and their Slimbridge Civil War community and those who supported them in Stroud and the Five Valleys
2. The Parliamentarians imprisoned in Painswick Church
3. The growers of Nicotiana Rustica who defied both King and Cromwell
4. Those who took direct action for a ‘moral economy’ against high food prices in Stroud and the Five Valleys
5. Those cloth-workers who took direct action against low wages and long hours in Stroud and the Five Valleys
6. Those who opposed slavery
7. Those who took direct action against the game laws
8. Those who opposed enclosure
9. Those who took direct action against turnpike tolls
10. Those who were transported
Nailsworth Shoddy
I often walk the cycle track at the bottom of Rodborough Hill,
The old Midland Railway spur from Dudbridge into Stroud,
And I often cycle the track on to Nailsworth through Woodchester,
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,
And I have often walked the surrounds of Avening, Minch and Amberley,
Recreating the 1916 tragedy of Dorothy Beard and Archibald Knee,
A young woman and a young new recruit,
Drowning together in a millpond.
In short, my head is usually lost in the clouds of the past,
Where I am entranced rather than perturbed by novelty –
Unlike Scrooge, I see few phantoms that repel –
Until last night, when just before our show
Trenchcoats for Goalposts,
At the Comrades’ Club,
In Nailsworth,
Jon Seagrave mentioned a local radio history programme
About that local branch line and the First World War,
Did I know that? …
Commemorative Walk Saturday 26th
The team at Stroud Brewery were thrilled to have another excuse to brew something special, this time to commemorate the great efforts of the chartists. We have produced a small batch of smoked porter aged in oak barrels. Come along and see if this beer gets your vote…
Saturday November 26th 1pm Stroud Brewery: A Chartist Walk with a Porter
Saturday November 26th 1pm Stroud Brewery: A Chartist Walk with a Porter
A performative walk starting at Stroud Brewery to christen the new Chartist porter. The walk will commence at the Brewery, with explanation, contextualisation and performance; then wend its way along the canal to Wallbridge and then along the old railway line to Dudbridge. We will then climb up to the Bell for more porter and thence to the top of Selsley Hill. The walk will be interspersed with performance, bringing the local and national Chartists to life in the landscape. Walkers make their own way back to wherever they wish to go: that’s the Chartists’ seventh point. We should be finished on Selsley by 4pm.
On the Evening of August 27th . 1916
‘Dorothy and Archibald’
On the evening of August 27 1916, Private Archibald Knee, 25 years old, and of the Gloucestershire Regiment was due to return to his battalion on a train from Stroud station, cured of his German measles. On any other Sunday evening, Dorothy Beard of Gravel Hill, Burleigh, eighteen years young, would have been preparing for work at Brimscombe Mills. But Archibald missed his train, and Dorothy did not appear at work the next day. Instead, having walked out to Longfords Lake, hand in hand, they tied themselves together with the belt of his mackintosh, and they drowned in Iron Mills Pond, Avening, in the early hours of August 28 1916. Dorothy’s watch had stopped at 3.51 a.m.