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.