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This review of Stroud is based on a slide-show Was it really 30 years ago..?, prepared for the Stroud Local History Society’s 30th Anniversary Exhibition, July 2014.
30 years of Stroud 1984 to 2014 is a reminder of some of the changes in Stroud during the past thirty years by Pauline Stevens and Marion Hearfield using the Citizen, Stroud Life and Stroud News and Journal cuttings archives and current photos.
30 years ago (1984) – groceries
Fine Fare in Merrywalks was fighting competition from the new Tesco in Quedgeley:
30 years ago (1984)
Moonflower and Withey’s Yard – Stroud Preservation Trust’s second project to rejuvenated Stroud and protect its historic buildings.
Withey’s was the town’s major grocery store in the early 1900s Click here for Withey’s shop & documents
30 years ago (1984)
… and Stroud house prices looked like this:
30 years ago (1984) – proposals for secondary schools
– Stroud High School and Marling to cease
- new Sixth Form College
- five 11-16 comprehensives
27th Sept 1984
In 1988/90 SHS and Marling became Grant-maintained, converting to Foundation Status in 1998/9.
Marling School celebrated its 125th anniversary in 2012
29 years ago (1985) – Marina proposed
The 2010 vision includes a water-balanced cliff railway
28 years ago (1986) – Museum on the move
The Cowle Museum’s industrial displays moved to Lansdown Hall in 1986.
Then in 1993 they had to move again. They were expected to go to a new home at Stanley Mill but nothing happened. Much is still in storage.
27 years ago (1987) – Woodchester Roman pavement
The replica of Woodchester Roman pavement was on display at Stroud Sub Rooms – after that it needed a new home.
It took Bob and John Woodward 10 years to make the replica from 1.6 million tiny tesserae tiles.
In 2010 it was put on display at Prinknash Abbey, but still without a permanent home.
A Woodchester consortium failed to get the mosaic, and it was sold to an anonymous buyer for £75,000.
Does anyone know where it is now?
The original Roman mosaic is under the grass in the churchyard at Woodchester
Side-track – Sir George Onesiphorus Paul was a prison reformer and had Gloucester prison rebuilt
27 years ago (1987) – the East-West bypass plans
Road to replace canal, leaving a dead-end.
A new section of the canal opened in 2013 to go through a different arch of the viaduct and re-connect again.
27 years ago (1987) – the LMS bridge was demolished
As part of the bypass works, the LMS bridge over the canal was removed,
leaving a cul-de-sac behind the Bell Hotel
26 years ago (1988) – Ebley Mill transformed
Stroud District Council new offices open at Ebley Mill
26 years ago (1988) – Woodchester Mansion
“Stroud District Council buys mysterious Victorian masterpiece, which has lain unfinished for nearly 130 years.”
The Woodchester Mansion Trust was formed in 1989 to save this Grade 1 Listed building from dereliction, but it will never be completed.
25 years ago (1989) – Former Union St car park will become Cornhill
This building remains:
24 years ago (1990)
Developers removed historic glass from the former Witcher menswear shop in The Shambles.
Only this window remains:
24 years ago (1990)
The Nelson School (originally Stratford Lodge) was bought by Premier House, after a Bovis retirement homes plan failed.
After a ‘modest’ extension, it became a County Inn hotel and Millers Kitchen pub and restaurant.
23 years ago (1991)
Plans for Waitrose to replace bus depot and old SDC rubbish depot
23 years ago (1991)
The Door Youth Project established in Gloucester St. (Now in High St)
23 years ago (1991)
Plastic cards replace tickets at library
Citizen 27.2.1991
23 years ago (1991) – Stratford Rd
The Alpine Lodge had gone from wedding receptions to a hostel for the homeless, and was being reinvented as The Stratford
Alpine Court flats are there now.
23 years ago (1991)
150 people in cast for Stroud community play at Leisure Centre
‘Making Up Time’ about Stroud’s history was a great success, but a financial failure. Citizen 30th Oct 1991
Click here for more information
22 years ago (1992) – Supermarket proposals
Possible competition for Tesco, Gateway, Coop (Cainscross) & the soon-to-be-built Waitrose
22 years ago (1992) – “We Ain’t Closing”
Says poem about Smith & Lees – ironmongers in High St, which closed in 1993 (now Holland & Barratt).
It had been an ironmongers for over 100 years – here is James Butt in the same shop in 1870:
21 years ago (1993) The British School and Old Painswick Inn
20 years ago (1994) – Parliament Primary School
Parliament Street Primary School moved into new buildings at the top of Bisley Road.
It became Severn View Primary Academy in 2012.
Citizen 21st July 1994
And on 8th July 2014:
School celebrates journey from special measures to good
The old school was built in 1883
The Register Office moved into part of the old school in 1995.
(In 1991 it had moved from Winterbottom’s solicitors in Rowcroft to London Rd)
20 years ago (1994)
Laurie Lee says supermarkets should have a bar “for husbands, to keep them out of mischief until their wives need the money”
20 years ago (1994)
The wall is still there
20 years ago (1994)
Stroud – one of the most affluent areas of the country. ‘The town ranks among South East stock-broker belts like Mid Sussex.’
19 years ago (1995) – Stroud Valley School
Plans for Stroud Valley infant and junior schools on same site at Castle St
This threatened Roxborough House Youth Centre (built in 1963 by Stroud Boys’ Club, replacing Roxborough House).
The Ryeleaze Rd building is now Stroud Youth Centre
18 years ago (1996) – Stroud General Hospital
New elderly care unit and outpatient department opened
18 years ago (1996) – Rowcroft Medical Centre opens
It was built on the site of Rowcroft House, where GP Dr Mould had lived.
18 years ago (1996) – plans for pedestrians
‘Cut the chaos’ town centre plans revealed – revolutionary changes to cut the number of vehicles driving through Stroud town centre by more than 70%
2 way traffic in Kendrick St 1986
Walkers The Bakers are in the same shop now
17 years ago (1997) – street CCTV cameras
16 years ago (1998) – Lord John
Wetherspoons proposal for the former postal sorting office in Russell St
15 years ago (1999) – ‘Made in Stroud’ Market
The first Farmers’ Market in 1999 had 11 stalls and was opened by Jasper Conran and Isabella Blow – now it has around 50 stalls per week.
It has won many awards, been seen on TV and even inspired a novel.
Previous markets at Cornhill had been a flop.
14 years ago (2000) – Slad Rd flooded
It was repeated in 2007
13 years ago (2001) – Stratford Park Mansion is new museum
Building finished Citizen 18th Feb 2000
The Cowle Museum opened as the Museum in the Park in 2001
Click here for information about the Museum and History of the Museum
The museum contains more than 5,000 objects, this is about 10% of the museum’s collection
13 years ago (2001) – Hill Paul was nearly demolished
A local campaign group saved the former clothing factory from the bulldozers,
Click here for more information
Citizen 9th Jan 2001
and by 2003 it was flats.
12 years ago (2002) – Cotswold Playhouse re-opens
New raked seats for auditorium and new lighting and sound rooms.
Then in 2007/08 there was a major extension.
The Cotswold Players bought the former Methodist Chapel in 1951.
11 years ago (2003) – Greyhound Inn
Greyhound Inn newly refurbished, but keeps (Grade II listed)Victorian gent’s lavatories
– which are mentioned on the History Board nearby.
12 history boards were installed in the town in 2004.
11 years ago (2003) – Closure of Old Bus Station imminent
New ‘bus station’ –it was supposed to be temporary
Photo P Stevens July 2014
10 years ago (2004)
Stroud 700 Exhibition celebrated Stroud becoming a separate community from Bisley in 1304 .
Ten years earlier, Stroud 400 had celebrated the town’s Market Charter – obtained in 1594.
The Stroud 400 and 700 Quilts are now in the Old Town Hall, (photographs courtesy of Barry Harrison)
10 years ago (2004)
“A multi-million pound new shopping mall is set to open on the site of Stroud’s Cotswold Indoor Bowls Club in spring 2006.”
Cotswold Indoor Bowls Club moved to the Cope Chat playing field in 2004.
(Safeway was rejected when it wanted to build a supermarket there in 1989)
In 2014 the old building is still empty.
9 years ago (2005) – the end of Butts at Wallbridge
Butts builders merchants closed.
They started trading there in the 1870s:
9 years ago (2005)
“New cinema, and 16-lane 10-pin bowling alley, have been built on the site of the old bus station.
“The previous cinema in Stroud, the Gaumont Cinema in London Road, closed more than 30 years ago.”
It can be seen from the surrounding hills
9 years ago (2005)
McDonalds opens on former builders’ yard, despite objectors
8 years ago (2006) – Creamery demolished
The Slad Road dairy had closed in 1994. This is there now:
Benjamin Grazebrook was a plumber who in 1769 built Stroud’s first reservoir and piped in water from Gainey’s Well
8 years ago (2006) – Maternity Unit saved
Stroud Maternity unit was saved (yet again) in 2006, but the ward at Weavers Croft closed
7 years ago (2007) – Stroud College Click here for Origins of the college and More information
- 2007 – New college replaced 1950/1960s building
- Cricket pitch moved to Ryeford
- New houses on both sites
6 years ago (2008)
Stratford Park, Balloon Fiesta
6 years ago (2008) – Uplands Post Office saved
5 years ago (2009) – Woolworths closes
5 years ago (2009)
the decorative arch of Park Gardens was reinstated
4 years ago (2010) – Stratford Park lake frozen
Photo P Stevens January 2010
4 years ago (2010) – Road works
First, Slad Road was closed for months to solve that flooding problem:
Photographs by Tony Macer, March 2010
4 years ago (2010) – More road works
Then the A419 was closed in the centre of Stroud for many months, lifting the road for the canal to go under.
The Canal Trust Visitor Centre watched as a Bailey Bridge carried the diverted traffic up and over Wallbridge.
4 years ago (2010)
Stroud & Swindon merged with The Coventry Building Society – the old S & S HQ has been taken over by Ecotricity
3 years ago (2011) – Lansdown Hall
Lansdown Hall and Gallery hosted Lansdown-on-Sea – there were Punch and Judy, ice creams, deckchairs and beach balls and much more.
Stroud Town Council bought the hall in 2010 to save it from possible closure.
(Previously it was The Space).
2 years ago (2012)– Stroud on Water canal festival
Boats on a three-mile stretch of waterway and activities on Marling playing fields
1 year ago (2013)
Last summer we were able to walk in the canal near Waitrose, before it was filled. Link to Cotswold Canals Trust
1 year ago (2013)
And the arguments for and against the Incinerator continued ….
This year – 2014
The headline in Stroud Life 1st July 2014, when we started to assemble this slide-show:
Next year? (2015)
The new Neighbourhood Development Plan will influence and affect what happens next in Stroud town centre. Take part in the discussions! Join in. It’s your town, and one day all this will be history too.
What else has happened in Stroud during the last 30 years?
We welcome any comments or additions – please use the contact form
Sources and acknowledgements
Pauline Stevens, a member of Stroud Local History Society, assembled this slideshow using cuttings from our local newspapers’ archives and some of her own photographs. We are also grateful for Tony Macer’s fascination with road works.
We would like to thank Gloucestershire Media, publishers of the Citizen, and Stroud Life, whose helpful staff cleared a space so Pauline could browse their cuttings archive – and also the editor of the Stroud News and Journal for her consent to use extracts from the microfilmed archive at Stroud Library.
Stroud Library’s microfilms go back to the 1850s, when the Stroud Journal was published, shortly followed by the Stroud News.
A research note from the SLHS digital archive added Aug 2014