No 31, High Street, Stroud

This shop used to be occupied by Mike and Joy Goodenough who specialised in rare and second hand books. They vacated the building in 2018, after running it for 40 years, but continued their business online. For a while the shop was empty but the flats above are rented separately. For the last couple of years the shop now called Dansk Gypsy, has been selling a variety of goods, many with a Danish 'flavour’. The red woman is a feature of the second hand clothes business next door, named 'Time after Time'.

In 2017 Camilla H. and I went around the town with the recently completed list of the town centre’s ‘heritage assets’, which the town council had recorded with help from local volunteers. It was a project initiated by Stroud Preservation Trust and Camilla and I are trustees of it. This building was featured in the List here in its former state as the bookshop, ‘INPRINT’. The footprint of the building is actually triangular with the rear being very narrow.

Just to the left of the shop front is an alley way which is shown clearly in the other linked pictures. The adjacent building on the other side of the alley is very interesting, as it was a former Medieval Hall, which Stroud Preservation Trust completely renovated and brought re-established it as a working building, before selling it on to new owners. It is now Grade 2 Listed. It was the first building the Trust renovated when it was formed after a few local activists halted the demolition of key buildings on the High Street. That story is told here. Mike Goodenough was one of those first very important activists and Stroud has a lot to be grateful for, through the commitment he and many others showed, back in the early 1980s.