GROWTH OF THE TOWN AND OUTLYING
SETTLEMENTS.
The town of Stroud grew up
on the road from Paganhill to Bisley where it climbs
the end of the spur above the junction of the Frome
and Slad valleys. The church was built north of the
road where, known as High Street, it runs steeply up
to the place called the Cross; at the Cross the road
forked, one branch continuing towards Bisley by
way of Hill Street (formerly known in its western
end as Tower Hill and its eastern as Silver Street)
and Parliament Street, and the other branch
leading by way of Nelson Street, Castle Street, and
Lower Street to Bowbridge Lane and the old road
to Thrupp and Chalford. From its nucleus on High
Street the town expanded along the roads above the
Cross in the 17th and early 18th centuries and
Acre Street, Chapel Street, named from the
Congregational chapel built at the beginning of the
18th century, (fn. 13) and Middle Street were established
within the fork. At its lower, western end High
Street was met by King Street (named from the visit
of George III in 1788) (fn. 14) which carried the traffic
from the old London turnpike into the town from
the south. Within those streets the town was
confined until the 19th century, its western extent
being roughly marked by the junction of High
Street and King Street, and its eastern extent by
Hollow Lane and its continuation (later called
Trinity Road from the church built there in 1839) (fn. 15)
running down from the end of Parliament Street.
The life of the town was centred on High Street.
The market-place was situated between the street
and the church and trading and other activities also
took place at the Cross. The chief inn of the town,
the George which had opened by 1654, stood on the
south side of High Street and in the 18th century 12
other inns stood in or around the street. (fn. 16)
The small market-place north of High Street,
known in the 17th century as the Pitching but later
usually called the Shambles, (fn. 17) was situated on land
called Pridie's Acre which was assigned as the
endowment of the church in 1304 and became
vested in the body called the Stroud feoffees. (fn. 18) On its
east side stands the market-house, built by John
Throckmorton, lord of Over Lypiatt manor,
c. 1590. (fn. 19) It is a rectangular stone building with a
central gable, and above the ground floor, which was
the site of shops and stalls, it had originally a large
first-floor room and small second- and third-floor
rooms. The principal elevation, facing upon the
market-place, originally had an arcade of four bays
giving access to the ground floor, and the first-floor
room was lit by an oriel window. Instability on that
front later led to the reduction in size of the two
central arches of the arcade and the addition of a
buttress, ornamented with classical columns,
beneath the oriel window. (fn. 20) The alterations were
perhaps part of the repair work which was carried
out on the building between 1640 and 1646. (fn. 21) In
the late 18th century rooms in the market-house
were used by the Red Boys charity school and by a
Sunday school (fn. 22) and in the 1780s part was used as a
spinning-house by a clothier. In the early 19th
century, from which time the building has been
called the town hall, the first-floor room was used
for meetings of the vestry and the Stroud improvement commissioners and for sittings of the county
court and magistrates; from 1856 the Stroud board
of health met there. (fn. 23) In 1851 a Gothic extension,
designed by Francis Niblett, was built adjoining the
north side of the market-house for the county
court. (fn. 24) In 1865 extensive restoration of the
market-house included the removal of the two upper
floors, and the insertion of a new roof for the single
high upper room thus created; (fn. 25) it was apparently
then that Gothic staircases were built on either side
of the front. At a subsequent restoration, before
1890, heavy buttresses were built on either side of
the oriel window to support the front. (fn. 26)
In 1726 a blind-house, or temporary lock-up,
adjoined the back of the market-house. (fn. 27) At the
beginning of the 19th century, however, the blindhouse stood with the stocks at the Cross at the top
of High Street. In 1811 it was removed once more
to the Shambles, but in 1830 a new blind-house was
built in Nelson Street. (fn. 28) A building called the
church house, recorded from 1601, evidently also
stood in the Shambles. (fn. 29) In the south-east corner of
the Shambles above the entry from High Street
were two houses belonging to the Stroud feoffees
and another three of their houses, including the
Butcher's Arms inn, formed part of the west side. (fn. 30)
The inn was rebuilt in the early 1830s when a castiron colonnade was put up along the west side, (fn. 31)
and a corn exchange, later the church institute, was
built in the north-west corner in 1867. (fn. 32)
Few houses of any antiquity survive in High
Street and most have modern shop fronts inserted on
the ground floor. On the south side a 17th-century
house retains a steep gable, and there are two other
gabled stone houses in the block above the entrance
to Church Street, one having an early-19th-century
bow-windowed shop front. Bank House at the
bottom of High Street on the north side is an early18th-century building faced in roughcast, with
dormers, sash-windows, and a classical porch; the
house, with a 19th-century building adjoining it on
the east, was once the headquarters of the Gloucestershire Banking Co. but from 1930 it housed the
offices of the Stroud U.D.C. (fn. 33) On the north of the
Cross a substantial, mid-18th-century stone house,
in two occupations, was demolished in 1971. (fn. 34)
Some of the other houses in High Street were
rebuilt or remodelled with ashlar fronts in the
earlier 19th century: typical are the house above the
entry into the Shambles, which was rebuilt by the
Stroud feoffees in 1846, (fn. 35) and the house below the
entrance to Kendrick Street, which was rebuilt by
the same body in 1841. (fn. 36) Just off High Street on the
east side of Church Street there formerly stood a low
gabled stone house, which was assigned as part of the
endowment of a charity school by Thomas Webb in
1642; (fn. 37) it was demolished c. 1945. (fn. 38)
Above the Cross the old town was an area of steep
and narrow streets of stone houses. In 1971 over 30
17th- or early-18th-century houses survived in that
area, most of them in Lower Street, Middle Street,
and in Whitehall at the east end of Middle Street;
they are of 2 storeys with a central attic gable and
usually have a central doorway with 2 stonemullioned windows on each floor. (fn. 39) The area also
contains some plain stone cottages of the 18th and
early 19th centuries, and there was some later-19thcentury brick development, notably in Middle
Street, which replaced Parliament Street and Silver
Street as the main thoroughfare when the Bisley
road was diverted to it in 1823. (fn. 40) The south side of
Middle Street was largely rebuilt with brick
terraces in the early 1870s. (fn. 41) Among the older
houses destroyed during demolition for redevelopment in the upper part of the old town in the 1960s
and early 1970s were a pair of gabled stone houses in
Nelson Street, one dated 1676, which was pulled
down in 1964, (fn. 42) and a row of 16th- or 17th-century
houses in Hill Street, demolished in 1968 and 1969. (fn. 43)
There are very few large houses in the old town;
as was noted in the 1770s, the clothiers, generally
the wealthiest inhabitants, usually lived at or near
their mills. (fn. 44) A group of larger houses was built,
however, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries
just outside the town at Beeches Green in Painswick
parish. (fn. 45) One of the few large houses within the
town was Rodney House in Church Street northeast of the church; it became the vicarage in 1912. (fn. 46)
The south-west range formed the original house and
by the early 18th century had been extended to the
east and west to form a rambling gabled house. A
stone with the date 1635 and a cloth-mark was reset
in a small porch added in the 19th century. (fn. 47)
Another large house was the Castle on the south side
of Castle Street. There was a house there by 1687
when it was owned by a clothier, Richard Arundell,
who died c. 1732. A later owner was the clothier
Charles Freebury (d. c. 1795), and in 1809 the
Castle was bought by P. H. Fisher, (fn. 48) the historian
of Stroud, who occupied it until his death in 1873. (fn. 49)
The basement storey retains 17th-century features
but the house was extensively remodelled in the
18th century, apparently c. 1789, (fn. 50) and the office
wing on the west was enlarged in the 19th century.
The house was known as the Castle by 1732, (fn. 51) and
the name is evidently older than the embattled folly
which is built into the garden wall. Corbett House,
west of the Castle, was built between 1820 and
1835. (fn. 52)
Expansion of Stroud in the early 19th century
occurred mainly south-west of the old town and was
stimulated by the building of the new Bath-
Cheltenham road in 1800 and the new London road
in 1814. (fn. 53) The former emphasised the importance of
King Street and its south-western extension,
Rowcroft, and the latter was made to connect with
Rowcroft by a street which was later named Russell
Street as a compliment to Lord John Russell. (fn. 54)
Shortly afterwards another street, known by 1826
as Great George Street (but later called George
Street), was made branching out of the new
London road at the eastern end of Russell Street to
take a more northerly course to King Street. (fn. 55)
The development of Russell Street had begun by
1820, (fn. 56) and by 1835 considerable building had taken
place in it and Great George Street and in the
London road east of their junction. Also by 1835
building had begun on two new streets made to
connect High Street with the new London road:
Union Street, later renamed Bedford Street, ran
from the middle of High Street to Great George
Street, and a street, which originally took the name
Swan Lane from an ancient lane with which it
connected but was later known as Union Street,
ran from opposite the Shambles to the new London
road. Swan Lane also had a branch running to the
London road called John Street, (fn. 57) on which a
Baptist chapel built in 1824 was one of the first
buildings. (fn. 58) Russell Street, Great George Street, the
original Union Street, Swan Lane, and the London
road as far as the houses called Frome Buildings at
its junction with Swan Lane were all included with
the older streets in plans to light the town in 1833. (fn. 59)
The new roads also caused fresh building in the
southern end of King Street and in Rowcroft, on
which, however, some new houses had been put up
in the 1790s, including Rowcroft House on the
north-west side, later rebuilt as the premises of
Lloyds Bank. During the first decade of the 19th
century a terrace of stone houses was put up along
the remainder of that side of Rowcroft; in its final
form the terrace apparently comprised a symmetrical
group, the central and two end buildings accentuated
by pediments, but in 1845 the two southern houses
were demolished to make way for a railway viaduct. (fn. 60)
By 1835 a development of 37 houses called Bath
Place had been built between Russell Street and the
Thames and Severn canal. (fn. 61)
Stroud 1971
A focus for the new part of the town was provided
in 1833 when the Stroud Subscription Rooms were
built at the bottom of Bedford Street facing Great
George Street over a small square. The rooms, which
were built to the designs of George Basevi, (fn. 62) are
a rectangular stone building of two storeys, the
south front having a central pediment and semicircular headed windows to the ballroom on the first
floor; a porch with a balcony above was added in
1868. (fn. 63) A large classical Congregational chapel built
on the opposite side of Bedford Street was opened
in 1837. (fn. 64)
The opening of the railway with a station south of
Russell Street in 1845 further stimulated the
development of the south-west part of the town,
although it also involved the demolition of some
houses, including part of Bath Place. (fn. 65) About 1870
the Imperial hotel, a large three-storey stone
building, was built on the north side of the station
yard. (fn. 66) Building continued in the existing streets
during the middle years of the 19th century, and one
new street, Kendrick Street running from High
Street to George Street by the east side of the
Subscription Rooms, was made in 1871-2; its east
side was built up in the upper part with large
brick buildings with terracotta dressings, and in the
lower part with large three-storey stone buildings,
the lowest, called the Cloth Hall, designed for the
firm of Libby & Pearce by W. B. Baker of Painswick. (fn. 67)
Expansion north of the town occurred mainly in
the later 19th century. There was, however, one
earlier development, the Brick Row, a long terrace of
houses running north-westwards from the end of
Church Street which was built in the early 19th
century by Joseph Grazebrook; (fn. 68) the terrace was
later demolished to make way for the clothing
factory of Holloway Bros. (fn. 69) In 1867 the west side of
Badbrook Lane, the extension of High Street down
to Badbrook, was built up with new houses by
S. S. Dickinson and renamed Gloucester Street; the
project involved the demolition of the Chequers inn
and a group of old cottages on the corner of King
Street. (fn. 70) Shortly before 1872 a plan, which had been
mooted as early as 1835, to make a new road from
the west end of High Street to meet Slad Road (fn. 71) was
realized by a Dr. Paine and the Revd. Edward
Mansfield. (fn. 72) By 1882 the new road, which was called
Lansdown, was built up at its southern end and the
development of its middle section with brick
terraced houses was in progress. (fn. 73) Lansdown also
became the site of a number of public buildings:
near its south end a Gothic group is formed by the
public library, built as a private school in 1873,
Lansdown Hall, built as a temperance hall in 1879
but later used as a Christian Science church, (fn. 74) and
the School of Science and Art, built in the 1890s. (fn. 75)
During the later 19th century the town expanded
to the north-west, beyond the parish boundary, with
the growth of a new suburb called Uplands; it is
treated above under Painswick. (fn. 76)
During the 19th century the town expanded most
significantly on its east side, beyond Hollow Lane and
Trinity Road. In the earlier part of the century
Summer Street, running from the end of Parliament
Street, Bisley Old Road, and the area in between
were gradually built up, mainly with terraces of
stone cottages, and at the same period the Leazes,
north of Parliament Street, was developed. (fn. 77) The
main expansion east of the town occurred after 1873
when the upper part of the Field estate, lying
between Bisley Old Road on the north and Bowbridge Lane on the south, was put up for sale in
building lots. (fn. 78) The building up of Bisley Road
eastwards from Middle Street with large villas in
pairs or threes, some modestly decorative with
Tudor-style windows, Dutch gables, or bargeboards, had begun by 1882 (fn. 79) and continued during
the remainder of the century; concurrently the south
side of Bisley Old Road and Belmont Road, running
between Bisley Road and Bisley Old Road, were
built up with smaller semi-detached brick villas.
During the late 1870s and the 1880s a large estate
of working-class houses was built by George
Holloway on Horns Road, running eastwards from
Trinity church; (fn. 80) it comprises a double row of
brick terraces north of the road and smaller terraces
south of it. Further south William Cowle, the owner
of the lower part of the Field estate from 1873, (fn. 81)
laid out the Park estate on a new road south of
Bowbridge Lane; by 1882 he had built Park House
in Italianate style as his own residence and two pairs
of Tudor-style stone villas, (fn. 82) and a few other villas
of the same type were built soon afterwards. Two
terraces of brick houses built between Park Road and
the London road before 1882 (fn. 83) were apparently
also part of Cowle's development.
The town continued to expand eastwards during
the 20th century. In 1921 the Stroud U.D.C. built
eight pairs of houses in Bisley Old Road, (fn. 84) and by
1936 two large council estates had been built, one
of 72 houses on Summer Street (fn. 85) and the other of
over 80 houses in Highfield Road leading off
Bowbridge Lane. (fn. 86) The Bisley Old Road council
estate was later greatly extended as far as the Bisley
road. Considerable private building occurred in the
same part of the town in the 1950s and 1960s, notably
on the Bisley road and on Bowbridge Lane, and in
the London road, where a few detached villas had
been built by 1936, (fn. 87) there was also piecemeal
development.
During the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s
much demolition for redevelopment was carried out
in the upper part of the old town, particularly in
Parliament Street and in Hill Street, on the north
side of which a new police station and magistrate's
court were under construction in 1971. In the lower
part of Summer Street a large development of
bungalows and flats involved the demolition of some
of the old cottages. Another development, including
a new shopping centre and multi-storey car park,
was in progress in 1971 in the lower part of the town
between King Street and Merrywalks, a road which
runs along the old parish boundary from Badbrook
to the Cainscross road. Merrywalks was a road of
little importance before the 1960s when a new
thoroughfare was built between its southern end
and Wallbridge and it became part of a traffic scheme
to ease pressure on the route by King Street and
Rowcroft.
Outside the town the high ground in the north and
east parts of the larger division of the parish was
sparsely settled with isolated farmsteads and manorhouses. The ancient manor-houses of Lypiatt Park,
Ferris Court, Middle Lypiatt, and Nether Lypiatt
stand spaced out along the western edge of the
Toadsmoor valley. (fn. 88) A number of farmsteads in the
north of the parish, mainly held from Over Lypiatt
manor, were recorded from the 16th and 17th
centuries. Fennell's Farm, a small 17th-century
farm-house with 19th-century extensions, northwest of Lypiatt Park, was held in 1573 by the family
of Nichols otherwise called Fennell. (fn. 89) Kilminster
Farm, a small farm-house dating in part from the 17th
century, was recorded in 1558; it took its name from
Thomas Kilmister, the tenant in 1725, having been
called successively Baldwins and Churches from
previous tenants. (fn. 90) Hill House on the opposite side
of the Stroud-Bisley road is basically a 17th-century
building which was remodelled in the 19th century,
before 1876, when it was given an embattled
parapet and Tudor-style windows. (fn. 91) A small cottage
north of Kilminster Farm, formerly called Nodlings,
was recorded from 1558, (fn. 92) and a house called Little
Ferris in 1581 was apparently that known in the
early 19th century as Berrymans north-west of
Ferris Court. (fn. 93) Two houses called Slatters and
Hawkins recorded in 1609 but pulled down by 1725
were apparently near Fennell's Farm. (fn. 94) There were
also scattered dwellings in the north part of the
Toadsmoor valley, including a house called Deptcombe messuage in 1562, which was later replaced
by three cottages, and some cottages in Bismore
which were demolished before 1667. (fn. 95)
There were a few ancient farmsteads on Slad Lane
in the north-west part of the body of the parish.
Stroud House in Steanbridge Slade which the lord
of Over Lypiatt granted to Thomas Clissold in 1607
and another Thomas owned in 1721 (fn. 96) may have
been at Stroud Slad Farm, a small early-18thcentury farm-house. Higher up Slad Lane a small
hamlet called the Vatch includes Abbey Farm and
Riflemans, both 17th-century stone houses to which
Tudor-style windows were added in the 19th
century; the latter was the Rifleman's Arms public
house in 1882. (fn. 97) Knapp House, standing above the
Vatch, is a late-16th-century stone house with
arched heads to the lights of its mullioned windows.
Originally it was a small symmetrical building, but
near-contemporary extensions were made on the
north and on the south-east. At the bottom of Slad
Lane, Slade House is a three-storey double-pile
house of c. 1710 which may have replaced the
adjoining 17th-century building, used as outbuildings in 1971.
The southern part of the eastern division of the
parish was more thickly populated, with a succession
of cloth-mills at intervals of 300-400 yards along the
Frome, and, higher up, loosely grouped settlements
of cottages and some large clothiers' houses lying on
or around the old road from Stroud town to Chalford. Nearest to the town, and later encompassed
by its suburbs, there was a straggling settlement
on Bowbridge Lane by the late 17th century. The
two large houses there, the Field and Field House,
are described below. On the south-west side of the
lane a pair of stone-built cottages, formerly a single
house, dates from at least the 16th century; cusped
lights from a medieval window have been reset in a
north-west wall, and an adjoining building,
demolished in 1960, contained a cruck truss. (fn. 98)
Further up the lane on the same side a long stone
range includes at its south-east end a small 17thcentury house called Daneway, which has central
gables on both main elevations. About 1690 there
were four cottages on the opposite side of Bowbridge
Lane around Crease Gate, where the lane was joined
by the track from Nether Lypiatt, (fn. 99) but only one
small stone cottage, and that of a later date, survived
there in 1971. In the 18th and early 19th centuries
several houses were built at the bottom of the lane
at the complex of mills and dye-works at Bowbridge,
but most were demolished in 1961 and 1962. (fn. 1)
Near by where the old road turned up the hill again
to Thrupp another small group includes the Gunhouse, a substantial early-17th-century house which
was occupied by a clothier, John Webb, in 1659. (fn. 2)
East of Bowbridge Lane, where the Lime brook
and a tributary run down wooded coombs from the
high ground of the central spur, there were scattered
cottages by the late 17th century. Together with the
cottages on Bowbridge Lane, they belonged to the
Clutterbucks' Thrupp estate (fn. 3) and in the earlier 18th
century were usually leased to families of weavers. (fn. 4)
A group called Weyhouse Cottages, standing by the
track from Nether Lypiatt to Crease Gate, (fn. 5) fell into
disuse in the 20th century in the absence of an
access road and was in ruins in 1971. The
occupation of another group of cottages to the
south-east was preserved by the making of a tarmac
surface to the track leading up from Thrupp
c. 1950. (fn. 6) They include a 17th-century cottage,
which was the Foresters' Arms public house in 1842
and until c. 1965, (fn. 7) and a row of three cottages which
was converted to become the farm-house of Claypits
farm. The little group of cottages at the Heavens
near by was in existence by 1775 (fn. 8) but was rebuilt in
the late 19th century. Further north a row of three
17th-century cottages, known as Rifle Butts from the
use made in the late 19th century of the Horns
valley below, (fn. 9) was converted to a single dwelling
in the mid 20th century.
Thrupp, more usually called the Thrupp, was
recorded as a settlement name from 1367 (fn. 10) and
seems to have originally applied to the group of
houses at a bend in the old road, where Thrupp
House, the centre of the Clutterbucks' estate, (fn. 11) an
adjoining cottage which was later the farm-house of
the estate, and a few other cottages stood by the late
17th century. (fn. 12) A few more cottages were added in
the 18th or early 19th century. A larger settlement,
however, was further along the road at the hamlet
which was also named as Thrupp in 1820 (fn. 13) but was
later distinguished as Far Thrupp. A few 17th- or
early-18th-century houses survive there including
the former farm-house of Yew Tree farm. A larger
number of cottages was added in the later 18th
century, and the building of the new London road
in 1814 caused the hamlet to expand westwards
down the hill so that it became the largest and most
compact settlement in the eastern division of the
parish outside Stroud town. Further down the old
road Upper Bourne and Lower Bourne also had
small settlements of cottages by the early 19th
century, (fn. 14) and presumably much earlier, for Bourne
was described as a vill in 1304. (fn. 15) At Quarhouse on
the lane up to Nether Lypiatt the establishment of
another small hamlet had begun by 1687. (fn. 16)
Along the bottom of the valley, the growth of
small settlements around the mills and crossingpoints of the river was stimulated by the building of
the canal in 1789 and the new London road in 1814,
and a number of inns opened to serve users of road
and canal. At Wallbridge by 1820 there was the Ship
and by 1856 also the Bell. Bowbridge had the New
Inn by 1856, and the Ship at Brimscombe Port had
opened by 1820. At Bourne in 1820 there was the
Quay inn and in 1856 the Railway, the Railway
Canal, and the King's Arms. (fn. 17) In the later 19th
century the London road began to be developed,
particularly at Far Thrupp and Brimscombe where
brick terraces were put up. The earlier 20th century
saw further building all over the valley: a new
settlement was created at Blackness at the bottom of
the Toadsmoor valley, and in the 1920s and 1930s
there was ribbon development, with detached and
semi-detached houses, along the old road south of
Thrupp and at Bourne. In the mid 20th century new
factory buildings put up for some of the industries
which settled on the old mill-sites along the river
emphasised the long-standing industrial nature of
the valley.
There were several large houses, mostly owned by
clothiers, scattered along the valley. On Bowbridge
Lane were two substantial houses, the one nearest
the town called the Field and another further down
the lane called Field House. The Field belonged to
the Arundell's Mill estate and descended to the
Revd. John Hawkins (d. 1871), whose trustees sold
the house in 1873 to William Cowle (fn. 18) (d. 1899). (fn. 19) It
is basically a 17th-century house, to which a new
ashlar west front in classical style was added in the
18th century; ground-floor bay-windows were
inserted on the front in the 19th. Field House
incorporates on the north-east a 17th-century range
with a central oak staircase around a well, some
original windows, and two surviving gables with
oval lights. Early in the 19th century a range was
added on the south-west to provide a new entrance
hall and living-rooms and the end walls of the older
block were rebuilt to match the new work. The new
part may have replaced an older wing, for in 1825
when it belonged to Samuel Clutterbuck of
St. Mary's Mill the house was said to have been
recently taken down and rebuilt. (fn. 20) In 1971 it was the
headquarters of the Gloucestershire wing of the Air
Training Corps. At the bottom of Bowbridge Lane,
on a site which after 1814 was bounded on the east
by the London road, stands another remodelled
17th-century house, which with an adjoining dyeworks belonged to Nathaniel Partridge in 1842. (fn. 21)
The back is of rubble with some stone-mullioned
windows, but c. 1800 the house was given an ashlar
south-west front in classical style.
Bowbridge House on the east corner of Bowbridge
Lane and the London road is a large three-storey
stone house with a classical porch and a venetian
window above. It was probably the house Thomas
Newcombe, the owner of a near-by mill, was
building in 1804, (fn. 22) for it belonged to a subsequent
owner of the mill, Richard Sandys, in 1842. (fn. 23) The
house called the Thrupp on the south side of
Thrupp Lane was evidently that which belonged to
the Griffin's Mill estate in 1740 and until 1794 when
it was sold to John Partridge of Bowbridge. In 1807
John's son Thomas sold the house to William
Stanton of Stafford's Mill who occupied it until his
death in 1841. (fn. 24) Stanton evidently rebuilt the
Thrupp, which is a three-storey stone house. (fn. 25) New
House at Far Thrupp, later renamed Brimscombe
Court, belonged in 1769 to the Wathens, (fn. 26) owners of
Thrupp Mill; the family occupied it until c. 1830 (fn. 27)
and in 1845 their trustees sold it to Nathaniel
Marling. (fn. 28) It was evidently rebuilt c. 1800 and is a
three-storey stone house with shaped parapets at the
sides and a classical porch. In 1971 it was occupied
as several flats.
In Paganhill tithing, the detached western
portion of the parish, the earliest settlement was
evidently at the village which gave the tithing its
name, of which Pakenhill was an alternative form
used into the 20th century. (fn. 29) The village had a
chapel of ease by 1287, (fn. 30) and the manor-house of one
of the ancient divisions of Paganhill manor was
at Field Place at the west end of the village. (fn. 31)
Several 17th- and early 18th-century cottages survive
in the village, including a row near Field Place of
which the northernmost is dated 1714 and the
southernmost has housed the Old Crown inn since
at least 1879. (fn. 32) The other cottages are mainly of the
later 18th century and include a three-storey row
of five at the road junction in the centre of the
village. Upfield, one of the larger residences, which
in 1971 housed a boys' preparatory school, is a
Tudor-style stone building of the early 19th century.
The Rose inn on the east side of Paganhill Lane
south of the village had opened by 1822, (fn. 33) and in the
mid 19th century there was also the Stag and
Hounds opposite. (fn. 34) Farmhill House, on the east side
of the road running up to Whiteshill, was the manorhouse of one part of Paganhill manor, and there was
formerly another large house, called Farmhill Park,
on the opposite side of the road. (fn. 35)
By the early 19th century the most populous area
of Paganhill tithing was at the twin villages of
Ruscombe and Whiteshill in its high northern part.
The two villages run together at the head of the deep
coomb formed by the Ruscombe brook, Whiteshill
lying along the eastern edge and Ruscombe forming
a smaller and more straggling settlement along the
western edge. (fn. 36) A settlement had been established at
Ruscombe by the mid 14th century, (fn. 37) and the largest
house in the village, Ruscombe Farm, was recorded
from 1532; (fn. 38) Whiteshill has not been found as a
settlement name before 1732. (fn. 39) Both villages have a
few 17th- or early-18th-century cottages, including
the one at Whiteshill which has been the Star inn
since at least 1782, (fn. 40) and Rake End at Ruscombe
which is dated 1713. The majority of the houses,
however, are plain stone cottages built during the
later 18th and early 19th centuries with no
distinctive features. A few brick or stone cottages
were added in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
including a group of small modestly decorative
stone villas built at the south end of Whiteshill
c. 1900. (fn. 41) At the beginning of the 19th century the
two villages had the reputation of being the most
poverty-stricken and morally-degraded part of
Stroud parish, a condition which the building of an
Independent chapel at Ruscombe and a church at
Whiteshill was later thought to have much
alleviated. (fn. 42)
There are a few smaller groups of houses in the
north part of the tithing. The Plain on the PaganhillWhiteshill road, where the pound for the tithing
was sited in 1825, (fn. 43) has a few 18th-century stone
cottages. At Callowell east of the road Callowell
Farm is a gabled and mullioned 17th-century farmhouse. It was evidently the Callowell House that
Giles Gardner of Stratford acquired in 1684, (fn. 44)
although at the same period there was another
Callowell House standing near by, which Thomas
Wood, a clothier, bought in 1683. (fn. 45) A 17th-century
cottage which stood just north of Callowell Farm
and housed the Plough inn from at least 1882 (fn. 46) was
pulled down c. 1966, (fn. 47) and there are also a few later
stone cottages. The hamlet was called Upper
Callowell in 1782 in distinction to a house called
Lower Callowell which stood some way to the southeast (fn. 48) until it was demolished shortly before 1891. (fn. 49)
Stokenhill Farm further north is a late-17th-century
farm-house of two storeys and gabled attics. The
narrow central entrance bay is flanked by cross-wings
with symmetrical fenestration. (fn. 50) A central porch
which was subsequently added to the principal front
on the south has a sundial dated 1717. The house
belonged to William Gardner of a prominent local
family in 1741. (fn. 51) Kite's Nest Farm north-east of
Whiteshill village is a small 18th-century stone
farm-house.
There was very little development in the extreme
south of the tithing before the building of the new
Stroud-Cainscross road in 1825. (fn. 52) One of the few
houses there earlier was Gannicox, later called
Lower Gannicox to distinguish it from a house built
north of it called Upper Gannicox. Lower Gannicox
belonged in the early 18th century to Thomas Bond,
and passed in succession to his brother Henry Bond
(d. 1757), curate of Stroud, and his nephew, William
Knight, a London banker (d. 1786). (fn. 53) In 1971 it
was a nursing home. The house is a three-storey
building which appears to be largely of the later
18th century. The long brick south front was
symmetrically arranged (although the doorway was
later moved to one side) and has a central pediment
and canted bay-windows at each end. North-west
of the house the brick stable block, now partly
demolished, evidently also had a symmetrical
elevation. Upper Gannicox was built in the early
19th century, and is a three-storey house with an
ironwork verandah on the ground floor. The buildings called Prospect Place, which stand on the north
side of the Cainscross road but pre-date it by a few
years, (fn. 54) comprise a terrace of four plain stone
houses, with a more elaborate house on the west end
and two brick houses added on the east end in the
later 19th century. The houses at Stratford Park and
Stratford Abbey in the east part of the tithing are
mentioned below. (fn. 55) Stratford Cottage, opposite the
entrance to the drive of Stratford Park, is a Gothicstyle stone house built shortly before 1804. (fn. 56)
Considerable building occurred in Paganhill
tithing during the 20th century. The development
of Stratford Road leading eastwards from Paganhill
village began c. 1900 when some brick villas were put
up on the south side; the Stroud U.D.C. began
building council houses on the south side of the road
in 1925, and by 1929 it had built 14 pairs along
the north side. (fn. 57) By 1936 another council estate had
been built on the north of Paganhill village and the
development of the former grounds of Farmhill Park
further up the Whiteshill road had begun. (fn. 58) In the
1950s and 1960s much building took place on the
east side of the Whiteshill road so that by 1971 there
was a continuous belt of housing up that side as far
as the Plain. A private estate was built in the 1960s
south-west of Paganhill village. On Cainscross Road
a row of brick houses was put up west of Upper
Gannicox in 1899 or shortly afterwards (fn. 59) and
similar houses were built on the east side of Beard's
Lane near by. Some detached villas had been built
on the south of Cainscross Road by 1936 (fn. 60) and by
1971 there had been a further development east of
Upper Gannicox. In the north of the parish a
council estate was added south-east of Whiteshill
village, and during the 1950s and 1960s many houses
and bungalows were built north of it, while in
Ruscombe village several new houses were put up
among the older cottages.