The spring below Hemlock Well house

I traipsed the streets of Stroud town centre with Camilla this morning as we were hand delivering our Neighbourhood Development Plan newsletter, which introduces what we are doing to the public. We attached an Invitation to a big public event where all comers can meet us all at Stroud Subscription Rooms on Saturday 15th November to learn more about it all. The evolution of the Plan depends on reflecting what the whole community wants to happen to Stroud's development for the next fifteen to twenty years.

We have sent the newsletter to every household in the parish and today we wanted to make sure that all businesses and community organisations in the town centre also received the information and the invitation to have their say. Camilla and I walked and talked for about four hours, which I found quite exhausting . But we covered a lot of ground and were mostly well received. It always amazes me however that there are still a tiny few who tell you it is all a waste of time and won't even read the information. We still represent them though.

By the time I finished at about 3pm the threat of rain had materialised and the grey clouds became darker. I stopped on the way home just a few hundred yards from where I dropped the last leaflet in Spring Lane, off Lower Street. It is like a country track, wide enough for one car or a horse and cart which was once the normal mode of transport and not that long ago. The lane runs downhill from the original town settlement beside an old 16th century and now listed house called Hemlock Well, between high Cotswold stone walls for about one hundred yards. Then at the point where it meets Field Road, the stone walls turn sharply back on themselves and at the corner is this old spring.

I have read a report written in the 1950s that describe the spring being open so that people could reach in to the running water and fill their cups. At some point this grill was put up and secured with a padlock which is still there, and it was rumoured to be because of the quality of the water. There are very many springs popping out of the hillsides in these valleys where the junction of the limestone and the underlying clays force the water out of the ground. I can't believe this water is any worse than all the others, many of which I have drunk and never become ill.

I have thought of doing an occasional series of blips of the springs of Stroud's Five Valleys, as they are called. Perhaps I will as I do love them and finding them takes me to many interesting places with local stories to research and recount for you.

I had intended this part of the Derelict Thursday challenge but am not sure that it is happening this week.