Rodborough Fort

Rodborough Fort is the castellated house on the brow of Rodborough Common, looking straight down on Stroud in the Five Valleys. It began as a folly built in 1761 for Captain Hawker, became a house in 1870, and is listed Grade II with its turreted curtain walls. It is privately owned, and seen from the common around it.

History

Rodborough Fort began as an eighteenth-century folly and grew into a Victorian house. Historic England's listing records that it was built as a folly for Captain Hawker in 1761, on the hill above the town.

The folly of 1761

The curtain walls with their turrets and gateways survive from Hawker's folly. They are of rough-faced limestone rubble with dressed stone trim, and enclose courtyards to the north-east and south-west of the house, with crenellated parapets, machicolated on the south-west side, that make the whole group read as a small castle from the town.

The house of 1870

In 1870 the folly was enlarged into a house for Alexander Holcombe, with a four-storey tower on the south-west side and two rear wings. A small chapel, probably of about the same date, was built along the inside of the north-west wall of the south-west courtyard, with four lancet windows and a larger east window with Decorated tracery. In the middle of the twentieth century the house was heavily restored, and much of its north-east front was rebuilt in artificial stone.

What to see

Rodborough Fort is a landmark, and the listing calls it an important feature of the landscape on a lofty eminence above Stroud.

• The four-storey tower, with its Tudor-arched doorway, a cross window on each floor and a machicolated, crenellated parapet, and a round stair turret rising at one corner.
• The south-west curtain wall, with a great four-centred arched gateway between a tall square turret and a lower round one.
• The north-east wall, enclosing three sides of a courtyard, with a large square turret and smaller ones.
• The view from the common beside it, over Stroud and the Frome valley.

Visiting

The fort is a private house and is not open; please keep to the common and respect the residents' privacy. The National Trust common around it is free and open at all times, with roadside parking nearby. Cattle graze the common from May to October, so keep dogs on a lead or close by when they are out.

Getting there

Drive up to the top of Rodborough Common on the road from Stroud to Minchinhampton and park beside it on the top of the common; the fort is a short walk across the grass, on the brow above Stroud. On foot, our Rodborough Common and the fort walk passes close to it before turning down the western edge of the common.

Nearby

The Prince Albert, a pub and music venue at the top of Rodborough Hill, is about 600m from the fort, and the Bear of Rodborough is at the far end of the common. Below in Stroud are the Subscription Rooms and the River Frome, and across the valley All Saints, Selsley faces it from its own hillside. South across the road, Minchinhampton Common carries on the open grassland.