'Derelict Thursday' - the Coach House of Fromehall

I have taken part today in the first of the 'Derelict Thursday' challenge set by SarumStroller, who has provided his own very thoughtful and heartfelt contribution here.


I was late getting away from the Merrywalks shopping centre at 5-15pm, where I had been meeting the community on behalf of the Neighbourhood Development Plan event. This meant that I ran into what Stroud has in terms of a rush hour. I am cooking a tofu and vegetable stir fry tonight so I'm running late now as I try to blip an entry in SarumStrollers 'Derelict Thursday' challenge.

I had it in mind to follow on from yesterday's blip of Arundel Mill pond, where the mill has already disappeared. I thought I would go to Fromehall Mill about half a mile downstream on the river Frome, where I know a main wall of the mill is near to collapse because vital repairs have been neglected by the non-resident owner. I walked down Fromehall Lane off the A46, along the high bank above the river, where Fromehall, the original mill owners house, was built. This was a common occurrence, whereby the owner, usually a 'clothier', lived just away from the works, but close enough to keep an eye on business.

I approached the footpath that dropped down from the lane to the actual mill on the river, which is still mostly occupied by a motley mixture of small businesses on its four floors. But before I got to that footpath, I could see the even more terrible condition of this building, the old Coach House of FromeHall. I stopped to take a picture or two and then realised that this would have to be my derelict image for the day.

I don't know the actual history of the Coach House, except that I could see that there had been some more recent housing developed close by, which means that the land of the 'big' house must have been sold off piecemeal, and the Coach house left to fend for itself. I couldn't get very close as the rough ground was very inaccessible and the adjacent houses gave very limited access for me to get a better and wider view.

But you can see the damaged Cotswold stone walls, which were the traditional building material, the falling outer stone having exposed the weaker and unweathered inner rough and cheaper stone. The roof would originally have been made of heavy limestone tiles that were specially produced from layers of a particular type of limestone found in particular quarry sites, which sheared along stratigraphic planes and then weathered exceptionally well. Once that went the roof timbers would be exposed, so they had been covered with corrugated iron possibly in the 1960s when that was a common bodge job.

I don't know what will happen to the building, but generally they are left to decay until they are forced to be pulled down. I saw a Planning Application Public Notice on a nearby gate for two houses to be built on land adjacent to the Coach House. But there will be no obligation to care for this building.

It was situations like this that the Stroud Preservation Trust was set up to try to remedy. I will send these pictures to my fellow trustees and we will have look at possible solutions, but they all need money and a lot of effort.

If you are interested, have a look at what we have saved in stroud over the last thirty years.