The church bells were ringing as I set forth
On the first day of my pilgrimage
Through parts of the parish of Rodborough:
A Cotswold stone cottage hamlet in places,
And a red brick railway mill town in others.
Young men were making their way home after work,
Stepping out from the pages of some Thomas Hardy novel,
Covered in dust and mortar and sand and earth,
Tired hands clutching their tools of their trade,
While a still strong late afternoon sun
Beat down upon their wearied backs and shoulders;
Windfall apples lined some lanes and kerbsides,
Awaiting some cider and scrumpy alchemy.
Ten ghost pubs, inns and off-licences ghost toasted.
Thunderstorms arrived the following day
On the anniversary of Peterloo -
The massacre of those who wanted to have the vote -
As I processed through Stroud’s pub history:
A cost-of-living crisis in the here and now,
A prime minister about to be selected
By a tiny fraction of the electorate –
It was all so easy to slip down wormholes of time
To the days of canal barge and stagecoach,
To food riots, strikes, Chartists,
Campaigns for a fair wage and democracy,
The Yoemanry and Stroud scarlet redcoats.
Fifty-seven ghost pubs, inns and off-licences ghost toasted.
I had a walking football tournament
The next day (we won!) up by Fostons Ash,
(Opposite the pub ‘is a long, narrow enclosure now occupied by conifer seedlings. The toll house stood at the north end of this close, about opposite the milestone, and just beyond the parish boundary, the parish stone still being in situ across the inner field wall.’)
So, I biked up through Slad and back home by the Vatch:
Four ghost pubs and inns ghost toasted.
(And the weavers’ 1825 direct action down at the Vatch too).
On the third day I managed to sandwich
A bike ride around Minchinhampton and Burleigh
Betwixt the RMT picket line in the morning
And a David Copperfield show in the evening.
Did Mr Micawber ever meet
Any of any of the local unfortunates
Transported to Van Diemen’s Land
And New South Wales, I wonder?
Nine ghost pubs and inns ghost toasted.
And on the fourth day, I cycled up Wick Street
Past Bull House (once the Bull Inn),
Where, in 1737, you could see
A ‘flying wagon’ leave for the metropolis
Every Monday at noon –
I told this tale to an interested Painswickian:
‘More regular than our train services today then.’
I doffed my ASLEF cap and climbed the hill
To make my way up to Painswick to explore
The backstory to the Gloucester Journal
Of August 1786:
‘The people of Painswick have presented a petition to the Justices of the county, setting forth the pernicious tendency of the great number of public houses, and requests a suppression of a considerable number of these seminaries of vice.’
I imagine that the definition of vice
Went beyond the sensual to the political
In that era of the ‘moral economy’ and food riots …
Be that as it may, today’s total,
After picking up a brace at Pitchcombe:
Twenty-three ghost pubs and inns ghost toasted.
We followed the Purton hulks trail
On my birthday, at low tide on the Severn,
To view the wrecks in the mid-stream sandbanks,
Melancholy reminder of the 1960 disaster,
When they hit the Severn railway bridge,
And the river was a sheet of burning flame,
A watery inferno and death bed.
We chatted with a local resident:
‘Six generations of my family have lived here. Have you come to view the houses for sale? There’s three. But the local young ones can’t afford them. There’s no buses now. The post office next door has closed. I remember all the fishermen coming down in their droves. But there’s nothing now. Just sometimes tea and cake of a Sunday in the church.’
After passing through Cambridge and Purton,
And walking downstream by the river,
And then along the towpath to Sharpness:
Ten ghost pubs and inns ghost toasted.
Two birds with no stone today, I’m pleased to say:
My afternoon shift on the foodbank
At Hope Mill Lane, Brimscombe
(2 miles to Walbridge and the Stroudwater,
27 and three-quarters of a mile
Along the Thames and Severn Canal
To Inglesham on the River Thames),
Preceded and succeeded by a trawl
Of ghost pubs along road, canal and railway,
Through busy Thrupp and Brimscombe and quiet Bourne,
With diversions to Claypits and Eastcombe:
Twenty-one ghost pubs, inns and off-licences ghost toasted.
Went to offer public support today
At Salmon Springs for the posties;
On the picket line with the Stroud Red band
At the site of the old Stroud Brewery,
But by going home via Callowell,
Not just a ghost brewery, but also
The former Plough Inn at Callowell:
One ghost inn toasted and a brewery.
Off to picturesque Chalford a few days later,
A ramble through wormholes of time,
Past springs and streamlet, river and canal,
The East India Company in the background,
But in the foreground of Chalford, too, of course,
As we made our way to the recreation ground,
For an old school family afternoon playtime:
Some twenty ghost pubs, inns
and unlicensed home brew houses ghost toasted.
Breakfast at The Prince Albert today,
Before thirty hardy souls went up hill and down dale,
On a Rodborough and Stroud Ghost Pubs Pilgrimage:
At the time of writing …
£279 raised for the Trussell Trust;
Now over £350.
Last night a gibbous moon silvered the clouds
While lightning flashed across the welkin
And thunder rattled the window panes,
But today I sallied forth on a pilgrimage
To Woodchester, Nailsworth and Horsley,
To wander the old market streets and mill ponds,
Then climb the hill to the Jovial Forester,
Ancestral home of Forest Green Rovers,
And so to the match against Accrington Stanley:
Some twenty-nine ghost pubs, inns
and off-licences ghost toasted.
I went to Stonehouse today on the train
(Expressing unconditional support for the RMT
To guards, conductors and station staff:
Effusive expressions of gratitude in return:
Little acts of kindness, guided by the maxim: ‘Enough is Enough’);
Talked ghost pubs with locals in the High Street:
‘That one used to be the Crown & Anchor.
And it was a great pub too.’
‘You from Swindon?
That’s the other side of the world.’
Pilgrimage complete, I returned to the station,
Remembering the old Stonehouse Brick Works,
And a ten penny return steam train ride to Gloucester,
Walking out from Leonard Stanley to train spot;
And when I got back to Stroud, I sat by the old canal,
Just by the old Stroud Brewery,
Picturing us arriving from Swindon in the old days,
Sniffing the malt and barley on the air as soon as we alighted;
And here I sit, penning these lines …
Some sixteen ghost pubs, inns
and off-licences ghost toasted.
We dodged the queue of rain showers today,
By walking out early in the morning,
To climb high up to Doverow Hill,
Via Cainscross, Cashes Green, Westrip, and Ebley,
Studied the darkening clouds beyond the River Severn,
But managed to do the business early doors,
Before we delivered bags of food to homes
From the food bank in the afternoon,
Feeling as though we were in some Ken Loach film,
And then we heard the Queen had died.
Some sixteen ghost pubs, inns
and off-licences ghost toasted.
A perfect autumn mid-September day:
Cider apples perfuming the air,
Conkers glistening on the pavements,
Blackberries splashing in the hedgerows;
A trip to Haresfield, Standish and Randwick,
Past the barn in the hollow at Holcombe,
Where grain was requisitioned by soldiers
From the parliamentary forces
Riding out from Gloucester in 1643,
Then along to Haresfield and Standish:
Just five ghost pubs, inns, beer houses
and off-licences ghost toasted.
The day of the equinox was pitch-perfect:
Teasel heads and cumulus clouds;
A keen breeze but warm sunshine
As I sallied forth to seek the delights
Of mills and old stone weavers’ cottages
Around Eastington, Leonard Stanley, Frocester,
King’s Stanley, Middleyard and Selsley:
Some eighteen ghost pubs
and inns ghost toasted.
Another perfect equinoctial morning:
A suburban stroll via Dudbridge,
The poetically named Lightpill, and then to
Bowbridge, where Citizen John Thelwall,
‘That Jacobin fox’,
‘The most dangerous man in England’
Spent part of the summer of 1797,
After escaping from William Pitt’s spies,
And then leaving Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
Down in Nether Stowey:
Eight ghost pub and inns, ghost toasted.
This is the final day of the pilgrimage,
With the Tory Conference in full swing,
And with ‘the rein in benefits spending’
Horsemen and women of the apocalypse
Once more galloping in the vanguard.
It’s all so dispiriting and I wonder
Whether I should be doing this:
It only seems to institutionalise charity,
To the right-wing pleasure of the mean spirited,
And so I complete my pilgrimage today,
Remembering my childhood Sunday school
Parable of the Good Samaritan,
As I wandered the streets and lanes of Uley,
Then Dursley, then Cam and then Coaley:
Some thirty-seven ghost pub and inns, ghost toasted.