conservation area statement - Stroud District Council

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CONSERVATION AREA STATEMENT – CONSERVATION AREA NO. 16 – TOP OF TOWNTOP OF TOWN IN ITS SETTINGThe landscape and geology of the Stroud areahas impacted on the character of the settlementin a number of ways, from the types ofbuilding materials most easily sourced, to thetypes of industries that developed. In visualterms, the surrounding landscape influencesthe first impressions gained on approach to thetown, and the local topography forms asignificant component of views and vistas intoand out of the settlement.An abundance of natural watercourses madethe Stroud Valleys ideal as the base formanufacturing and industry, as the flowingwater provided power for the mills. A goodclean water supply was also necessary forwashing the wool used in cloth production.Industrial development naturally occurredalong the valley bottoms, notably the FromeValley, where mills could also be close totransport links.Today, Stroud is at the centre of an extensivenetwork of road and rail links and waterways.Many of the earliest roads that served thesettlement ran along the tops of the hills, andtheir extreme steepness and muddiness was adeterrent to much traffic. This certainlyinhibited transport and trade links and ratherisolated the early settlement. However, the 18 thand particularly the 19 th century saw transportimprovements, including the construction of anumber of major new turnpike roads, whichran along the valley bottoms, many of whichreplaced existing hilltop routes.Belmont Road stepping down the hill towards Bisley Road. Thedistinctive wooded valleys, often glimpsed from within the townforming a backdrop.Page 9
CONSERVATION AREA STATEMENT – CONSERVATION AREA NO. 16 – TOP OF TOWNGEOLOGYBetween about 185 and 140 million years ago,during the Jurassic period, a vast limestone beltwas created, stretching between Lincolnshireand the Dorset coast. The Cotswolds, a regionof ambiguous boundaries, is usually held toconstitute the highest part of this belt, a plateauthat rises from the east in Oxfordshire anddescends in a dramatic escarpment to the west,within sight of Stroud.During the Jurassic period, a shallow seacovered the area, in which a sequence ofsediments settled into alternating layers or‘strata’ of clay, sand and limestone. Althoughthe beds of sediment were each laid down on avirtually horizontal level, subsequent processeshave resulted in shifts in the terrain, so that, inplaces, strata of quite diverse ages andsubstance have ended up next to each other.The whole Cotswold plateau has been tilted,so that the west has risen up, while the east hassunk. Erosion and climatic changes have alsoplayed their part in shaping the landscape.In the past, the whole Cotswold formation wasknown as the Oolite, due to the prevalence ofthis form of limestone throughout the region.Limestone, and in particular oolitic limestone,is extremely permeable, and where it meetsbeds of impervious clay, water is driven out inthe form of springs. Hence the Cotswolds areriddled with streams and brooks as well asrivers. These have been highly active in theformation of the topography, carving deep andcomplex valleys into the ‘Oolite’ plateau, aprocess that continues and means that thelandscape is ever changing.Due to its porous nature, oolitic limestone is‘soft’ when it is newly extracted and may beeasily worked. The mass of oolite is in twobasic layers, separated by a narrow bed ofFullers Earth: the older, deeper layers beingknown as the ‘Inferior Oolite’ and the upperlayers as ‘Great Oolite’.The tilt of the Cotswolds means that the lowerlayers, the ‘Inferior Oolite’, are exposed alongthe western escarpment, where they are moreeasily accessible than in the eastern Cotswolds.The hills encircling Stroud were particularlyrich in good quality Lower Inferior Oolitestones, known by masons as ‘Freestones’, dueto the ease with which they can be cut anddressed. Among these is Lower Freestone, ofwhich the fine Painswick Stone is a variety,and Lower Limestone, the eldest of the strata,of which there is a large outcrop at FrocesterHill. Upper Freestone is of poorer quality,mostly used for burning, to create lime mortarsand plasters. At Stroud, though, it wassufficiently good to be used for many of thetown’s ‘rock-faced’ rusticated buildings.TOPOGRAPHY AND LANDSCAPEThe town of Stroud is famously located at thecentre of what is known as the ‘Five Valleys’.These comprise the valleys of the PainswickStream to the north, the Slad Brook to thenortheast, the river Frome, entering Stroudfrom the southeast and exiting to the west, andthe Nailsworth Valley to the south.To its north, south and east, the town issurrounded by a complex pattern of hills,valleys and coombes.The range of hills to the south of Stroud,stretching westward from those topped byRodborough Common and Selsley Common, isterminated by the distinctive form of FrocesterHill on the Cotswold escarpment. From theescarpment, the Cotswold landscape descendsto the flat plain of the Severn Vale.The peaks between the deep valleys formed bythe Frome, Slad Brook and Painswick Streamare riddled with many further valleys. Manyare carved out by the abundance of tributarystreams and brooks, as at Puckshole, where theRuscombe Brook slices southwards betweenthe hill-top villages of Whiteshill and Randwickto the north of Stroud.The topography of deep valleys, hills andwinding roads creates endlessly surprisingviews. The traveller’s sense of direction is oftenchallenged, and distant landmarks are revealedthrough vistas in unexpected places. The viewsalso create a warped sense of scale at times:from hilltop to hilltop, far away villages appearrelatively close, with expanses of countrysideor town concealed in valley bottoms or justover the crest of a hill.Page 10
Page 1 and 2: April 2008- CONSERVATION AREA STATE
Page 3 and 4: CONSERVATION AREA STATEMENT - CONSE
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Page 19 and 20: THE SPACESCONSERVATION AREA STATEME
Page 23 and 24: THE SPACESCONSERVATION AREA STATEME
Page 43: CONSERVATION AREA STATEMENT - CONSE
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Page 52 and 53: APPENDIX I: Rev. 21.04.2009Stroud T
Page 55: For further advice and information,

conservation area statement - Stroud District Council

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