The town of Stroud is the capital
of the south western Cotswolds and
located at the divergence of the five Golden Valleys, so named
after the monetary wealth created in the processing of wool from
the plentiful supply of water power.
Five populated valleys converge at Stroud, ten miles southwest of Cheltenham, creating a bustle of hills. The bustle is not a new phenomenon. During the heyday of the wool trade the river Frome powered 150 mills, turning Stroud into the centre of the local cloth industry. Even now, Stroud is very much a working town, and one which doesn't need its heritage in order to survive. While some of the old mills have been converted into flats, others contain factories, but only two continue to make cloth - no longer the so-called Stroudwater Scarlet used for military uniforms, but high-quality felt for tennis balls and snooker tables.
In recent years, Stroud has become a thriving alternative centre, its town council Green since 1990. You'll see mountains of organic food and sustainable goods for sale in the centre, while the nearby valleys are home to a growing community of artists and New Agers.
You can select an alternative Place to Visit from here
Chalford Valley (Golden Valley) - shown above
Chalford is the largest of the valleys where the River Frome runs down the bottom of a deep narrow gorge from Sapperton to Stroud. Chalford village (3miles south east of Stroud) is highly attractive and exisits because of the early Industrial Revolution. It is built on ascending terraces on the south facing slopes of the 'Golden Valley' and approached by a bemusing series of narrow and often steep lanes and alleyways. This large village consists of late 18th and early 19th century houses, most of which belonged to prosperous clothiers. These are in company with many delightful cottages once inhabited by humble weavers. The popular town of Minchinhampton lies on a tongue of high land between this vally and Nailsworth valley. Minchinhampton detailed information - click here.
Painswick Valley
The Painswick Valley with its fast flowing streams attracted the cloth industry in the 18th and 19th century with some 30 fulling mills established which made the area very affluent. The town of Painswick, known as the Queen of the Cotswolds is a very popular Cotswold Touring destination.
Painswick detailed information - click here
Nailsworth Valley
The Nailsworth Avon rises near Cherrington, passing through Avening, Gatcombe Wood and Longford's Mill, before it is joined by a small stream at Nailsworth.
Nailsworth was a cloth making town and is situated at the foot of a deep wooded valley with houses spilling down the hillsides. Nailsworth detailed information - click here
Slad Valley
The Slad valley, again, was a centre of clothmaking until the 19th century when the mills ceased production. The grey-stone village of Slad is scattered along the south-east slope of the narrow valley and has been immortalised by the poet and author Laurie Lee.
Cam Valley
In an area lying between Frocester Hill in the north-east, and Stinchcombe Hill in the south-west, the Cotswold escarpment forms a natural amphitheatre around the low lying Cam valley. The large village of Cam is 1 mile north of the town of Dursley and one mill remains here producing high quality cloth used largley for tennis balls, billiard tables and guardsmens's uniforms.
Stroud Town
Stroud was the Industrial centre of the Cotswolds being built upon the wool industry and today is still very much of a working town.
It is a centre for Arts and Crafts and public transportation too and from this region of the Cotswolds. The train station is served from London Paddington.
COTSWOLDS.INFOHIGHLY RECOMMENDED READING
in association with Amazon
'I remember, too, the light on the slopes, long shadows in tufts and hollows, with cattle, brilliant as painted china, treading their echoing shapes' Cider With Rosie is a wonderfully vivid memoir of Laurie Lee's childhood and youth in a remote Cotswold village. From the moment he is set down in the long grass, 'thick as a forest and alive with grasshoppers', he depicts a word that is both tangibly real yet belonging to a now distant past.
Laurie Lee, author of the beloved classic Cider with Rosie, was born in Gloucestershire in
1914. He spent his formative years in the village of Slad and the enclosing Cotswold valley—as he described it, “greener and more decently lush than is decent to the general herbaceous smugness of the English countryside.” Drawing from Lee’s poetry and prose, this photo–laden homage to that verdant landscape offers us a uniquely personal view of the Cotswolds between the wars. Paul Barker and James Birdsall previously collaborated on The World of the Brontës.
