Let's move to Stroud, Gloucestershire | Money | The Guardian

Let's move to Stroud, Gloucestershire | Money | The Guardian

What's going for it? It's easy to caricature the south of England as populated by insufferable snobs and chinless wonders who've never done an honest day's graft. But there was an industrial revolution down here, too, you know. It's not all scented candles and pop-up shops. Stroud sets you right. While the old mills squashed into its deep valley creases aren't exactly satanic, and – in sunny Cotswold stone – hardly dark, mills they are, giving the town an aftertaste of Oldham. The town has a reputation as a la-di-da, Margot and Jerry sort of place – "Notting Hill with Wellies", the Evening Standard called it. Admittedly, Jasper Conran and Isabella Blow did launch the farmers' market. And yes, Painswick et al is just up the road. But the town itself is far more spit and sawdust, albeit with a shaggy, artsy, Whiggishly radical edge, all fairtrade, buy local. Goodness knows what the BNP thought it was doing trying to set up its national media office here. Drummed out of town! Now Kevin McCloud, that's more like it. His housing company, Hab, is creating 78 new homes on an old hospital site: eco, course, community-led, naturally. Very Stroud.