Highlighting particular buildings around Brimscombe basin.
The Company built these four warehouses to store goods in transit between the differently sized barges from the Severn and from the Thames. The protruding bay on the right included an office for the clerks who had to keep track of the myriad of small items that passed through the warehouses.
Following the sale of Port House near Port Mill in 1807, the right-hand warehouse was converted into a house for the Company’s agent. In time, this became known as Port House.
As new vessels came into use, the need for transshipment declined, and by the middle of the nineteenth century, the warehouses were little used. In the 1890s, the whole block was converted to house the Brimscombe Polytechnic.
Port Mill was rebuilt after a major fire in 1864. It was still producing fine woollen cloth in the early twentieth century, but this ceased around 1920, and the building has subsequently had a range of other uses.
Beside the basin in front of the mill stood the house occupied by the foreman of the local canal employees. This has not survived.
Beside the house, a small warehouse built for salt storage in 1791 can be seen. It has vents in the walls through which warm air was passed to keep the salt dry. Now a listed building, this remarkable survivor reminds us of the importance of the salt trade along the canal in the fifteen years following 1791.
In the early years, Terrace House was occupied by the principal trader of the time. Behind the house was a warehouse used by the resident for his business.
By the second half of the nineteenth century, trade on the canal had declined, and the house was let to whoever would pay the rent. In the twentieth century, the building was divided into two dwellings.
The lumps of stone in the foreground of the picture were on what had been the Retail Wharf, where coal had been sold for local use.
In this building was a giant weighing machine in a dock in front of the Long Shed. It was built in 1844 to provide a means of checking the cargoes carried along the canal.
A loaded barge was floated into the dock, the gates were closed, and the water drained out. This left the barge resting in a cradle on one side of a balance, which had a long arm on the other side, requiring only small weights to balance the barge. Having previously weighed the barge empty, the difference between the two measurements gave the weight of the cargo.
The building has been demolished. There is a model of the machine in Stroud Museum in the Park.
Conversion of warehouse to agent’s house from TS/158, 1 October 1808.
Declining use of warehouses from last recorded imports in TS/29.
Conversion of warehouses to Polytechnic from TS/261 rental.
Fire at Port Mill from Stroud Journal 24 Sep 1864.
History of Port Mill from https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/glos/vol11/pp119-132.
Construction of salt warehouse from TS/164a p170.
History of Terrace House from T&SCo minute books.
Erection of barge weighing machine from TS/165a, 13 March to 11 Dec 1844.
