INDUSTRIES 



With this exception, there has now been no 

 flax industry in Gloucestershire for some years, 

 though thirty-five years ago there were over a 

 hundred hands employed in it. In 1838 a flax 

 mill at Chipping Campden gave employment to 

 forty-seven persons. 1 Linen used to be woven 

 at Moreton-in-Marsh, and when the railway 

 there was opened, the directors were each pre- 

 sented with fine linen table-cloths of local manu- 

 facture. This industry owed its rise to govern- 

 ment protection, which had fostered the growing 

 of flax at Moreton and Willersey as far back as 

 1787.' 



A small cotton industry has existed for at least 

 a century. A cotton-thread lace factory was 

 founded at Tewkesbury at least as early as 1817, 

 and in 1825 these works, the property of Messrs. 

 Freeman in the Oldbury, were considered highly 

 equipped for that date. The manufacture did 

 not, however, survive later than 1850.* In 

 1803 there was a cotton-spinning mill at 

 Bitton, 4 and by 1845 the Great Western Cotton 

 Company had established its works at Barton 

 Hill, Bristol. At the present day this firm 

 employs some 1,500 workpeople, and exports 

 largely to India and China. 



Of other industries due to natural resources 

 there only remain malting and brewing, which 

 are hardly peculiar to the county, and cider- 

 making, which has been the natural result of 

 Gloucestershire's wealth in orchards. The 

 earliest record of its manufacture that I have 

 noticed is in about 1290 at Tidenham, a lay 

 manor,* but it was probably practised first by 

 religious houses, whose gardens were usually well 

 stocked with fruit trees. 



Methods of communication, even at the 

 earliest period of the county's industrial history, 

 were unusually good, in spite of the amount of 

 hill and forest. This was mainly in consequence 

 of the network of roads bequeathed by the 

 Romans, and by the Britons before them. The 

 central point of these is Cirencester, where the 

 Foss Way, running north-east and south-west, 

 cuts the lesser Ermine Street, which connects 

 Cirencester with Gloucester, Ross, and ultimately 

 Wales. Close to Cirencester this line of roads is 

 crossed by the Akeman Street, which ran almost 

 east and west, entering the county at Coin 

 St. Aldwyn, and passing on by Cirencester to 

 Rodmarton, Aust, and the Severn. The White 

 Way from Winchcombe also ended at Ciren- 

 cester. Besides these there was the Salt Way, 

 from Droitwich to Lechlade, which entered the 

 county near Hailes and ran down the eastern 

 margin by Salperton and Coin St. Aldwyn ; a 



1 P C. Rushen, op. cit. 

 1 GIouc. Record Boob. 



1 J. Bennett, lewkeiburj Tiarlj Reg. \ ; and Hist, of 

 Inakesburj, 202. 



4 Glouc. Quarter Sessions Minute Bb. 

 * Mins. Accts. bdle. 859, No. 21. 



track from Gloucester to Bristol, probably on the 

 line of the existing road, and another trackway 

 which nearly followed the present road through 

 Birdlip, by the Seven Springs to Andoversford. 

 The Portway, which started at Bath, ran by 

 Gloucester past Kimsbury, Painswick, and Min- 

 chinhampton ; Buggilde's Way traversed the 

 northern Cotswolds by Honeybourne, Broadway 

 and Guiting, and passed out of the county 

 at Bourton on the Water ; while the British 

 Ryknield Road crossed the northern part of the 

 county close to Tewkesbury. The Severn was 

 crossed at Aust and Abone, probably, as well as 

 Gloucester and Tewkesbury. At the present 

 day, besides these two towns, there are bridges 

 at Upton and Sharpness, and a passage at 

 Newnham. 



The canals made at the end of the i8th 

 century and in the early years of the igth 

 gave means of industrial communication which 

 supplemented and often superseded the less 

 dependable road routes. First in date was the 

 Stroudwater Canal, which, opened in about 1779, 

 has had a useful and placid existence, and has 

 connected the different manufactures of the 

 Stroud Valley with the Severn estuary, and 

 with the Gloucester and Berkeley Canal. 

 Next, in 1798, the Hereford Canal was opened, 

 although it did not for some years extend, as was 

 intended, to Gloucester. It was bought about 

 the middle of last century by the Great Western 

 Railway, was neglected, and has been for some 

 years derelict. In 1 799, the Thames and Severn 

 Canal, of which 26^ out of a total length of 30 

 miles pass through Gloucestershire, began iti 

 troubled existence. It had been the ideal of 

 various engineers of the early i8th and even the 

 1 7th centuries thus to join the upper waters of 

 the Severn and Thames. Finally, at a cost of 

 ,245,000, the highest part of the interven- 

 ing watershed was pierced by a tunnel of i$ 

 miles at Sapperton ; the rest of the incline 

 was overcome by a double series of locks, and 

 the canal, at last opened, had a steady success 

 up to 1841, when its traffic amounted to 

 89,271 tons, with receipts of 11,730. Then 

 adversity overtook it. The Great Western 

 Railway opened its line from Cirencester to 

 Swindon in that year, and in the sixty-five years 

 that have since passed the canal first fell into 

 partial disuse from obstructions in the Thames, 

 was then bought by the Great Western Rail- 

 way, and in 1893 formally closed. It was 

 later purchased by a public trust, which, after 

 the expenditure of 19,000, once earned a 

 profit of 271 ; was again declared unwork- 

 able ; and in 1901 was finally taken over by 

 the County Council, who have spent large sums 

 on its repair, and hope eventually to make it 

 successful, as supplying a means of communi- 

 cation to a large district at present ill-provided. 



From these three comparatively unimportant 

 canals we may turn to the great Gloucester and 



191 



