Cotswold Walks Chalford Stroud Valleys

Another Cotswold Walk this time in Chalford near Stroud in Gloucestershire. If you have any experience of walking in this area you will know that paths tend to be either going up or going down, there is very little flat walking to be had except in the valley bottoms. Chalford was built on the cloth trade powered by the river Frome. There were six large mills here but also a lot of cottage industries connected to them with weavers and clothiers cottages ranging up the hillsides. Since the raw materials could be bulky and the finished produces heavy the mills and workers used donkeys to transport it up and down the steep paths. In later years when the mills had gone, the locals still used the donkey to carry shopping and groceries, and this continued until quite recently. The Chalford valley was also the route chosen for the Great Western railway on its route from Cheltenham and Gloucester to London, which was the same destination for the ambitious Thames to Severn Canal which also quietly wanders through here. Although the walking is a little strenuous at times it is well worth the effort to see this unique hamlet with its alpine feeling of dwellings clinging to the hillsides, and history at every turn.