Brunel Goods Shed opens its doors again

This is a combined work and blipping task today, as I don't have much time. We are inside one of the small former offices attached to the Brunel Goods Shed in Stroud, as I need a picture of this wall to give to our electrical supply contractors so they can see where on the wall they must mount the main board of the soon to be installed 3-phase electricity supply. This is a saga, which I won't dwell on but it could finally allow the Shed and offices to be occupied and brought back to a working life.

Camilla and Anne are the Chair and Treasurer respectively of Stroud Preservation Trust, of which I am a trustee as well. Tonight we have a trustees meeting where we will check on the various works which are in progress. We have just received a £30,000 grant payment to cover a variety of internal works, including toilets, wash facilities and basic lighting and power circuits for the offices and the Shed, which are needed by our new tenants.

The reason for being here at lunchtime was to appear in a photo-call by the Telegraph newspaper group, who are featuring the story of the Trust and our Goods Shed in a couple of weeks time. It will tie in to an awards ceremony for which we have been short-listed, and that the Culture Show on BBC2 will be filming in two weeks time. Apparently we have a 25% chance of winning one of the four Heritage angel awards for looking after listed buildings. We are even invited to the awards ceremony which will also be televised. This is all a bit public for us.

This room has just been cleared of a range of old textile machinery which have been saved for posterity. The room hasn't been otherwise used since 1966, when the Goods Shed was closed for business as the Stroud centre for the distribution of goods and parcels by rail. You can see the layers of old peeling paint and remnants of the old services. I like this sort of atmosphere, and I am again reminded of Amalarian (or Tuscany), who loved snooping about and showing or being shown old decaying stuff.

If we win the award I will probably tell you. It was interesting to be instructed how to pose by a professional photographer who gave the impression of having seen and done it all before. I had a look at the screen on his Nikon to see what his pictures were like, and I have to say they were pretty good actually.