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Sunday, 16 March 2008 11:48 |
- What and where is Stroudwater?
- Stroudwater is an old name for the rivers and streams of the Five Valleys and their landscape centred on the small town of Stroud in Gloucestershire. The area could be said to stretch from Daneway in the east, to Avening and Horseley in the south, to Painswick and Slad in the North and to Frocester and Fromebridge in the west, encompassing most, if not all, of the catchment of the River Frome.
- How many mills were there there?
- Between 1750 and 1820 there were about 125 cloth mills on the Stroudwater rivers (Jennifer Tann Gloucestershire Woollen Mills 1967). Many have medieval origins and most at some time were used for grinding corn. Some very small ones disappeared early in the 1700s.
- What went on in them?
- Before the end of the 18th century most of the cloth mills were used for the finishing of woollen cloth which had been prepared and spun in the agricultural districts and woven in cottages locally. Like New Mills (later Dunkirk) there were fulling stocks, teazel raising gigs and accommodation for the shearing of cloth. Fulling stocks had been used in Gloucestershire since the 12th century, but the transition from fulling mills to factories undertaking all of the processes in the production of woollen cloth occurred in the first part of the 19th century. Many of the multi-storey mill buildings of Stroudwater date from this period.
- What about the Cotswold Wool Trade?
- Gloucestershire was famous in the 1300s and 1400s for the quality of its wool. The monasteries were major producers but great Lords such as Lord Berkeley also had large flocks. Their fleeces were in great demand in the European cloth centres like Flanders and Florence, and wool was England’s major export. The Cotswolds are celebrated for the evidence of the wealth created by the woollen trade in churches, houses etc..
By the 1700s wool as being brought into the Cotswolds. The local wool had declined in quality but also the industry had outgrown its supply. Before 1700 merino wool was being imported from Spain. Over the centuries this has captured the main production of the remaining company. Stroud has followed the merino sheep in its journeys round the world, from Spain to eastern Germany and now to Australia.
- Why and when did the mills stop working?
- The manufacture of woollen cloth was not ended by the Industrial Revolution as is sometimes thought. The prosperity of the woollen cloth manufacturers varied considerably during the 19th century but there were still times of considerable commercial success as shown by the immense programmes of building and investment which survive from particularly the first half of the 19th century, (eg: Stanley Mill, Dunkirk Mills, much of Longfords Mill and many other sites).
The Gloucestershire woollen cloth trade was based on the production of broadcloth of the highest quality. The reasons for its eventual decline in the late 19th century are complex but changing fashions with an increasing demand for the lighter worsted cloth produced in the north of England was a factor. The industry continued to decline throughout the 20th century and now there are only two sites involved in cloth production.
Through the centuries the manufacturers have had to adjust to the demands of fickle fashion. Many have failed but today there remains one very successful producer of high quality woollen cloth. Based in Stroud and Cam and serving mainly the snooker table, casino table and tennis ball markets it might produce with modern machinery as much as all those mills did in the past.
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