Dusk approaching behind the Brunel Goods Shed

When driving up one of the ramps in the multi-storey car park close to the town centre I spotted that the shutters of the Brunel Goods Shed were open, so I walked back to have a look. The Goods Shed had railway tracks running into and beside it on both sides before it was closed in the 1950s, and the arches retain the width of the original wide gauge railway that Isambard Kingdon Brunel first designed. The car park is in a sorry state and actually still have remnants of the steel railway tracks embedded in the gravel.

I became involved in the restoration of the building when I became a trustee of Stroud Preservation Trust and we eventually managed to raise enough money to ensure its renovation. We arranged for the lease of the building to be passed to Stroud Valleys Artspace, a very successful local arts organisation, who now arrange exhibitions and music events in the building.

I thought I’d grab a picture through the mesh fence of the car park, having been recording its various transformations over the years, and there was the bonus of the imminent sunset behind the redbrick Hill Paul building, a former clothing factory, converted into flats in 2001.