The Brunel Goods Shed in Stroud

Helena went back to work again this morning, and to make it easier for her I drove her to the other side of town.  I took my camera with me despite being a bit thick headed after last night's long meetings and and a restless night's sleep.  At the second meeting of the evening, a gathering of the Neighbourhood Plan Sites research group, I promised to take more pictures to illustrate the various sites that we need to show at the public meetings starting on Saturday for eight days.

I have been the main provider of photos of the town that have been used at meetings and also on the website.  Now it looks like we need another twenty or so more locations to be recorded and printed up.  After dropping Helena I drove into the centre of town and blearily tried to think which site i should start with as the early morning light would some some and not others.

I did a short circuit of the town centre looking at the way the light was falling and then decided to go to the railway station and the car parks on the north side which are a key zone we are featuring.  The area is rather cut off and only approachable via the Station forecourt.  The narrow road allows parking of cars on both sides in some places but not others until the Goods Shed is passed where there is a much wider space which you can see in my picture, rather potholed.  

The Brunel Goods Shed is very dear to my heart because the trustees fo the Stroud Preservation Trust handed over the lease fo the building to Stroud Valley Arts last year.  The Trust had spent enormous amounts of time and raised a lot of money to transform the building from the ruinous state they found it in in the mid 1980s.  It is owned by Network Rail who did not look after it despite it being then one of the only existing examples of a Brunel designed goods shed which hadn't been knocked down or adapted.  Now it has a good new life  and a solid future as an arts venue for the town.

I have recorded the various changes from its sad neglected state into its current state and this was the first time in about a year that I had been back there with a camera.  I took a lot of pictures of the surroundings as they are the subject of the Neighbourhood Plan issues we need to illustrate.  But I couldn't resist standing with my back to a the new Brunel multi-storey car park and taking this picture.

Afterwards I set off around town for a couple of hours to grab the other pictures and will need to do more tomorrow.  The rest of the day was intense as well, as I am involved in organising the public meetings next week, as well as finalising arrangements for one of the evenings of the Stroud Film Festival the week after.  I must be mad.