If you stand on Stroud station and gaze up to the clutch of red brick buildings on the hillside to the right of the tall red brick mill, you are looking at the area where the Rev Wilbert Awdry of Thomas the Tank fame lived and wrote for the last thirty years or so of his life. His house was named Sodor.
He had a great view of the Brunel Goods Shed from his garden and became Patron of the Goods Shed Appeal after British Rail removed the roof in 1984: decay and demolition loomed for the 1845 Cotswold stone gem …
This beautiful and unique Brunel building (‘Tudor Gothic revival style’) stands some 120-150 yards from the station on the up-line. The lettering on the side from the golden age of railway posters and advertising reads
GWR STROUD STATION EXPRESS GOODS
TRAIN SERVICES DAY TRANSITS
BETWEEN IMPORTANT TOWNS
Thanks to the efforts of the Stroud Preservation Trust and the Goods Shed Appeal, the Goods Shed is now used by Stroud Valley Arts as a performance, exhibition, film and cultural space: indeed, this year, the 180th anniversary of the building, will see the official transfer of the building to Stroud Valley Arts.
Try and look at that lettering the next time you pass it on the train and reflect upon its history: its uniqueness and yet its symbolism: from an economy based upon steam and manufacturing to one based upon services: Industry to Art:
An Easter shower of cumulus rain:
But sunlight gleamed through the lazy raindrops
On the carriage windows of my Stroud-bound train –
When Isaac Newton’s spectral alchemy
Flashed raindrops silver quick as mercury
Across my reflection on the window pane.
A rainbow arced over Brunel’s Gothic Goods Shed:
Signalling a future – risen from the dead.
Industry and Art
Art and Industry
(A cycle of change and continuity)