Hidden Stroud: the Co-operative Building

After work today I popped over to Gloucester on the no.14 bus, the slowest route known to humankind. I wanted to see how the new commuter town of Kingsway was coming along. Just a few miles outside Gloucester, on the flat Severn vale, close to the M5, this redbrick town is growing and growing. The housing is being built by a range of private developers, and the only Kingsway house I've been in was huge, but without views.

At one point we passed a sign that said "Welcome to Neighbourhoods two and three". I was glad to see a Tesco Express, a new "rustic" pub, and a couple of other shops, as well as a spanking new school. Didn't have time to clock whether there was a Post Office, but I can be sure there will be no new-build library! (Our government isn't keen on libraries). I've never before thought about the infrastructure needed to create a new town, apart from public transport links. Kingsway has many more of these than previously, but no railway station. And I am not sure how you manufacture 'community' in a commuter town.

CleanSteve had asked me to get some tofu, so I got off at the Quays, and cruised Gloucester's outlet shopping centre, and Hobbycraft. My crafting mojo appears to be dead and buried: nothing there could revive it, apart from the idea of jigsaw puzzles upstairs. By the time I had done this, and got the tofu from the Neo Oriental wholesaler's, I was too knackered to visit the Cathedral, a mile or so away, so I walked through the park and took photos of the tete a tete daffodils emerging. The sun was shining, but the sky had a steel-blue colour, as if it might turn stormy. Cherry blossom was coming out, and the city was looking bonny, considering.

Returning to Stroud on the shorter bus route 93, I saw the sky clearing, and by the time we got there, it was a shade of azure to die for. I could not resist blipping the Co-operative building. This was built 1931 in the Art Deco style, at the Cross in Stroud, now the intersection of Nelson street and Cornhill, but once Stroud's most important trading post. The left hand side is home to the launderette, while the recently-opened Black Books cafe (fantastically popular) is on the right. An insurance agency has recently quit the offices on the Nelson street side, but Nelson street itself is thriving at present, unlike the poor High Street, below it, so they won't be empty long.

Links to Other Hidden Stroud blips can be found on my bio.