William Cobbett (1763 – 1835) rode around the English countryside in the 1820s. He was a farmer, a politician and writer, and very much a political reformer; the latter was the reason for his travels as he wanted to see agricultural life first hand. He published his writings in a book called Rural Rides in 1830, from which this extract is taken. It describes a ride through the Cotswold countryside, south, and south east of Stroud.
“Tetbury is a very pretty town, and has a beautiful ancient church. The country is high along here for a mile or two towards Avening, which begins a long and deep and narrow valley, that comes all the way down to Stroud. When I got to the end of the high country, and the lower country opened to my view, I was at about three miles from Tutbury, on the road to Avening, leaving the Minching-hampton road to my right. Here I was upon the edge of the high land, looking right down upon the village of Avening, and seeing, just close to it, a large and fine mansion-house, a beautiful park, and, making part of the park, one of the finest, most magnificent woods (of 200 acres, I dare say), lying facing me, going from a valley up a gently-rising hill. While I was sitting on my horse admiring this spot, a man came along with some tools in his hand, as if going somewhere to work as plumber. “Whose beautiful place is that?” said I. “One ’Squire Ricardo, I think they call him, but …”—You might have “knocked me down with a feather,” as the old women say,… “but” (continued the plumber) “the Old Gentleman’s dead, and” … “God —— the old gentleman and the young gentleman too!” said I; and, giving my horse a blow, instead of a word, on I went down the hill.
Before I got to the bottom, my reflections on the present state of the “market” and on the probable results of “watching the turn of it,” had made me better humoured; and as one of the first objects that struck my eye in the village was the sign of the Cross, and of the Red, or Bloody, Cross too, I asked the landlord some questions, which began a series of joking and bantering that I had with the people, from one end of the village to the other. I set them all a laughing; and, though they could not know my name, they will remember me for a long while.—This estate of Gatcomb belonged, I am told, to a Mr. Shepperd, and to his fathers before him. I asked where this Mr Shepperd was now? A tradesman-looking man told me that he did not know where he was; but that he had heard that he was living somewhere near to Bath! Thus they go! Thus they are squeezed out of existence. The little ones are gone; and the big ones have nothing left for it but to resort to the bands of holy matrimony with the turn of the market watchers and their breed. This the big ones are now doing apace; and there is this comfort at any rate; namely, that the connection cannot make them baser than they are, a boroughmonger being, of all God’s creatures, the very basest.
From Avening I came through Nailsworth, Woodchester…these villages lie on the side of a narrow and deep valley, with a narrow stream of water running down the middle of it, and this stream turns the wheels of a great many mills and sets of machinery for the making of cloth.
The factories begin at Avening and are scattered all the way down the valley. There are steam engines as well as water pumps. The work and tray is so flat that in I should think, much more than 100 acres of ground which I have seen today, covered with rails or rods for the drying of cloth, I don’t think I saw one single acre where the rails have not cloth upon them. The workmen don’t get half wages; great numbers are thrown on the parish; but overseers and magistrates in this part of the country do not presume that they have to leave any body to starve to death; there is law here; this is England…
The subsoil here is a yellowish, ugly stone. The houses are all built of this and, it being ugly, the stone is made white by a wash of some sort or another. The land on both sides of the valley and all down the bottom of it has plenty of trees on it; it is chiefly pasture land, so that the green and white colours and the form and great variety of ground, and the water, and all together make this a very pretty ride. Here are a series of spots every one of which a lover of landscapes would like to have painted. Even the buildings of the factories are not ugly. The people seem to have constantly well off. A pig in every cottage sty and that is the infallible mark of a happy people. At present this valley suffers; and though cloth will always be wanted, there will be much suffering even here…”
(Rural Rides. 1830.)
By and large this is a seal of approval as Cobbett could be scathing. Nearby he had this to say, ‘I passed through that villainous hole, Cricklade about two hours ago… Cheltenham is a nasty, ill looking place, half clown, half Cockney…’ Probably neither description is accurate today.
In many ways there is still much here that Cobbett passed by. Tetbury is still pretty, in part because the nearby presence of King Charles III ensures that discipline is maintained. Gatcomb now has an inhabitant, the sister of the King.
Many of the mills are still standing, although they have long stopped producing textiles and have now been turned into apartments, artists studios, or artisan units. Some did close in the 19th century, as Cobbett anticipates what turned out to be a perennial issue and that was the fluctuating demand for wool, particularly as in the 19th century it was in competition with cotton textiles and imported wool.
The stream continues to run through the bottom of the valley, and remains powerful enough to power the mills if ever needed.
Plenty of trees still grace the sides of the valleys; mostly beech, the tree most common in the area. The land is still pasture and used for the grazing of sheep (sometimes the local Cotswold sheep) and cattle. Pigs, though, no longer can be found, although a bacon curing factory can be found in South Woodchester. (The pigs must be somewhere then.)
So a pretty location but the limestone, which we now recognise as the typical Cotswold stone – and much loved – he describes as ugly. Usually it was covered with a lime wash, he notes, though this was more for protection rather than to cover up the ‘ugly’ honey colour. Nowadays the stone remains bare and often appears on biscuit tins and in books as a representation of quintessential England. As is all the Cotswolds.
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Graham Thomas 