The ruin on 'The Knoll'

It was a bright sunny day for my drive up the Severn Vale to meet up with Hillyblips this morning. I managed to arrive on time and was greeted with good coffee as promised and a good chat ensued. We then talked about her computer issues for rather too long, so that we didn't have time to actually go out looking for blips together. Maybe another time.

I then turned towards home and headed south to gloucester as I had planned to stock up with fresh tofu from the Asian emporium I like to frequent. The sun was getting lower in the cloud filled sky as I headed out of Gloucester on the Stroud Road. I suddenly thought that I would take a picture of an old abandoned building which I have watched steadily deteriorate over the last few years.

It is a roadside dwelling, probably having been several homes over the years, now lying beside the entrance drive to 'The Knoll' care home, which is sited above it on the hillside. I didn't know any of its history, but it is the sort of building that Stroud Preservation Trust would have attempted to restore if it was able to. Sadly it is out of our area.

I guess that the house may be listed and not allowed to be pulled down. When the modern care home was built in the same grounds, this building was left to its own devices, so that eventually it will be too far gone to restore. Then it might be possible to build on its site, and would probably yield a sizeable return.

When I looked up its history online, I could find very little reference to it. But it appears it was part of a large estate on Robinswood Hill. In the mid-1960's the Gloucester & West of England Holloway Society (now known as the Original Holloway Society) purchased the main house and the surrounding 14 acres for conversion into a Care Home. The original Holloway Society sold the home on during the 1990's, a year or two after they had sold Newsham House directly across the Stroud Road. Strangely that was where I had to stand to get this narrow view, standing on the main road outside a brand new modern estate of multiple small homes. The process continues.

Last week, I blipped this statue in Stroud of the originator of the Society, George Holloway.