From Lodgemore Mill along the towpath to Stroud

I hadn't been over the recently replaced swing bridge over the canal fro some time. It is only a single track road over the canal and only used occasionally, but there has been a swing bridge there for nearlyone hundred and fifty years. 

Where the canal bears to the left, in about a hundred and fifty yards, an old wharf side warehouse still exists in good condition, and is still used as business premises. Just in front of it, and straight ahead in this view, was the now filled in canal basin where originally the barges would be unloaded and their goods transhipped onto horses and carts. With the regeneration of the canal there has been talk of re-establishing the basin as a place for visiting boats to moor, when the canal is reconnected to the national waterways network in a couple of years. That sounds like a good idea to me.

Just at the bottom left of this picture, the water is disturbed where the Painswick Stream flows into the canal. Before the canal was built in the 1790s the river was have flowed about fifty yards to the right of this view, and joined the river Frome before it was channelled into Lodgemore Mill to power the machinery. The Mill is still working, although not with water powered machinery and produces the cloth used on snooker tables as well as tennis balls. You can still see water flowing in channels in around and under the mill buildings, which always surprises me when I spot a new channel, as I did today only a few yards from here.