Amusing anecdotes about activities seen from the towpath.
To publicise Powell’s circus visiting Stroud in 1869, the manager spread the word that a clown in a bathtub would be drawn along the canal by four geese! This was evidently inspired by a similar event in London in 1818 (illustrated), which other circuses later copied across the country to boost publicity.
The Stroud event did attract a large crowd, but things did not quite go according to plan, as three of the geese escaped from their harness. Nevertheless, Paul Hawkins Fisher recorded in his diary that the fourth goose did draw the tub with the clown in it all the way from Lodgemore Mill to the Ship Inn at Wallbridge. This really was a wild goose chase!
