And then there was light

Anne M. rang me from the Brunel Goods Shed to remind me that the newly installed electrical supply was about to be connected operationally this afternoon. Anne is a fellow trustee of Stroud Preservation Trust, and she was involved in the initial takeover of the Shed back in the 1980s, when it was heading for destruction through neglect. She ought to be praised for her relentless commitment to the building. I am exhausted by it and I have only been involved for about five years.

I drove down there after dropping Helena off at her work in Brimscombe and found a fleet of electricians vans parked outside the shed and a bevy of men waiting for the big moment when the wires got connected. They then had to test the newly installed circuits, lights, power supplies and fire alarms which have been installed recently awaiting this moment. There are still holes in the ground which need to be back-filled and the surfaces of the road, footpaths and car park across which the 170 metre long trench has been dug.

It has cost us about £50,000 just to get the electricity to the Shed and to fit out the fully equipped interior ready to hand over to the tenants. All we now need is to find the 'lost' water supply and get it connected too. The Water Company have admitted to having lost all the records of the water services to the Shed, even though we still have copies of the old bills from many years ago.

Anne and I went inside just as the electricity flowed to see the space lights illuminating the vast interior for the first time, and the fire alarms all successfully ringing. It has taken Anne and I more than two years to arrange this whole process and to get through the hoops of planning permissions, quotes, contracts and fund raising. We are relieved. Enormously.

I took a few shots of the process, including the electricians working away at making all the connections, as I have been keeping a record of all the stages of the transformation of the Goods Shed for our archive. But my eye was taken by these fashion dummies sitting in the middle of the Shed, which are part of the props used by the artists from our tenants, Stroud Valleys Artspace. It will be interesting to see how they use the massive space of the Shed in future as well as getting some rent back from them to help pay for the cost of this whole process.

You can see a shot here of the dummies being used as props for the BBC2 Culture Show when they filmed the Goods Shed story back in September. This is a view of the old building prior to our recent works