Take a train journey from Stroud along the Chalford Valley to Kemble and enjoy the views (part 2)

By:  Blue Badge Tour Guide - Anne Bartlett

Stroud railway station

 The second part of the journey will take you in an easterly direction towards Stroud across a brick built viaduct high over the A46. As the train pulls into the Victorian station at Stroud, you’ll notice on the right hand side a beautifully restored, red brick building, which was originally a factory for making garments, one of a number of successful clothing factories that were around the town in the 19th and 20th century. The coming of the railway added to Stroud’s prosperity providing transport for the workforce, the faster movement of goods, cheaper coal and better access for the shops, but at the same time it was economic disaster for the canals.


The restored Hill Paul Building Stroud

As the train leaves the station, look at the map and you will see that the railway line runs alongside the Thames and Severn Canal and they both run through the Chalford Valley, supposedly called the “Golden Valley” by Queen Victoria. In autumn the valley looks beautiful as the trees are changing colour but in Victorian times it would have been full of sulphurous smelling smoke as noxious fumes poured out of the factory chimneys. The golden valley referred to, not so much to the beauty here but to the wealth created through the production of cloth. This area was famous for the red cloth known as Stroud Scarlet which clothed the soldiers across the British Empire.

As you travel along, look out of the left hand window to see the channel of what was once the Severn and Thames Canal, now disused and without water. And imagine the enormous hard work and manual effort involved in building this canal in the 1780’s it was a huge undertaking. Not only did thousands of navigators or navvies as they were called have to dig deep into the ground along the whole course of the proposed waterway to create a channel, wide and deep enough to take the boats. They were doing all the hard work by hand using picks and shovels; and wheelbarrows were needed to cart the spoil away from the site. They built many locks as the boats had to be gradually lifted up the hill towards the top of the Cotswolds, they built the longest tunnel ever built at the time between Sapperton and Daneway to take the boats through the top of the hill. A large port was built at Brimscombe with wharves, warehouses and stables (it was horses that pulled the boats and carts before steam engines were used).

Once built, the canals required a considerable army of workers to keep the water borne traffic moving efficiently. Each stretch of canal would have a lengthsman who was responsible for the maintenance of his section of canal. Lock keepers were needed to open locks and collect tolls. At Brimscombe they needed dockers, warehousemen, carters, blacksmiths, wheelwrights - all sorts of different trades.

When the railways started to be built, the navvies who had dug the canals transferred their skills to building the railways. The canals were often taken over by the rail companies to transport building materials to the sites, then, once the railway was built the canals were no longer needed and they were eventually allowed to fall into decline.

The train will continue to climb the valley and you will see scattered houses on the hillside then suddenly the view is lost as the train disappears into the Sapperton rail tunnels, before reaching the Victorian station at Kemble. Here we will have reached the Gloucestershire border.  The train will continue on to London Paddington, via Swindon and Reading.

It's a fascinating journey, full of interest and worth taking time to watch the passing countryside.

Take a train journey from Gloucester to Stroud and enjoy the Cotswold countryside (part 1)

By:  Blue Badge Tour Guide - Anne Bartlett

A rare sight in Gloucester these days

 Today I'm going to suggest a fascinating train journey across to the eastern borders of Gloucestershire, where you can get great views across the countryside of our glorious county and see historic developments in the Stroud valleys over the last three centuries. And I suggest that you take an ordnance survey map with you, such as Explorer 179 to follow the route as you travel along.

As the train pulls out of Gloucester from probably the longest platform in the country and heads south, you’ll pass the districts of Tredworth and Tuffley and you’ll get a very different view of Robinswood Hill and Country Park, which is quite a landmark in the area, it will be the western side of the hill that you see from the train, whereas it’s the eastern side that you see as you travel along the M5 motorway. Once south of the city, the train crosses over the M5 and you get clear views across the flattish countryside of the Severn Vale. The views to the left are towards the Cotswold escarpment which you see in the distance, and to the far right the views are of the Forest of Dean.

Shortly on the right hand side you’ll see the industrial site of Dairycrest, part of the Dairycrest group which supplies milk to grocery stores and supermarkets around the country, produces butters and spreads, powdered milk and numerous brands of cheeses, particularly the appropriately named Cathedral city cheese. 

Selsley Church

 As the train travels on, across to the right on the hillside in the distance, you’ll see All Saints Church, Selsey, built in 1862 which has a tall tower with a distinctive French style saddle back roof. This church is renowned for its craftsmanship as well as its stained glass windows by founder of the Arts and Crafts movement, William Morris and fellow artists Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.




Samuel Marling's memorial in Selsey Church

  The church was commission by wealthy Sir Samuel Marling a cloth manufacturer who lived at Stanley Park and was a great benefactor. So much so, that a little further on you’ll pass Marling School which is the oldest Secondary school in Stroud, which started way back in back in 1887. Sir Samuel gave a substantial amount of money towards the building of the school.

If you look at your map of Gloucester and Stroud, it’s from the Cotswold town of Stonehouse that the journey becomes really interesting as the train will travel parallel to the Stroudwater Canal which was built between 1775 and 1779 to link the River Severn to Stroud so that the Severn trows could bring their cargo inland. It was the wool industry that financed the building of the canal and you will see stone chimney stacks from some of the cloth mills rising through the trees.

Enormous amounts of work have gone into restoring this section of inland waterways by the Cotswold Canals Trust. If you look at http://www.cotswoldcanalsproject.org/ you will see lots of photographs of the restoration work that is taking place between the towns of Stonehouse and Stroud.

Caught on Camera - a boat trip on the River Severn with probably the best Showman in the business

By:  Blue Badge Tour Guide - Anne Bartlett

I love my job as a Blue Badge Tourist Guide but sometimes, on a tour, one comes across the unexpected, as happened to me in a nice way, the other day.

I was taking a group of holidaymakers on a coach trip around the riverside towns of Worcestershire.  We stopped at Stourport-on-Severn to look at its fascinating history and heritage.

Stourport was a pioneer town of the canal age and very important during the Industrial Revolution. We took a look at the canal basins at the end of the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal, which links the River Severn with the Trent and Mersey Canal. I explained how and why Stourport became one of the busiest inland port in the Midlands.

The town grew rapidly and by the 1780's there were brass and iron foundries, a vinegar works, tan yards, worsted spinning mills, carpet mills, barge and boat building yards, warehouses, shops, houses and inns. It was incredibly busy. Today, the industry has all but disappeared and Stourport has reinvented itself, catering very well for the leisure industry and holidaymakers.

We strolled alongside the River Severn to see the locks and then into the town. During our walk we met up with Henry Danter who owns Treasure Island, a funfair that is probably one of the oldest funfairs still operating in this country.

After introducing Henry to my group, Henry was keen to welcome everyone and to show us the River Severn by boat. 

Being a glorious morning we thought a boat trip would be fun, so we all boarded his pleasure cruiser moored just under Stourport bridge and Henry took us on a cruise up the river to the end of the navigation before turning around and taking us down river as far as Lincombe Lock then back to his berth at Stourport.  You can see a photo of some of my holidaymakers sitting at the stern of his boat called 'The Skylark,' with a 'Jolly Roger' - a pirates' flag, fluttering in the wind behind them!

Here is Henry giving us a commentary. What we hadn't realised was our arrival coincided with him being filmed for a television programme about English Showmen and their families. So the camera crew joined us on board for the river cruise and we got ourselves in the picture! 

The programme was recorded for television - channel 5 and is due out in November.