Stroud

Stroud is a market town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England. It is the main town in Stroud District. The town's population was 13,500 in 2021.

Sited below the western escarpment of the Cotswold Hills, at the meeting point of the Five Valleys, the town is noted for its steep streets. The Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty surrounds the town, and the Cotswold Way path passes by it to the west. It lies 10 miles (16 km) south of the city of Gloucester, 14 miles (23 km) south-southwest of Cheltenham, 13 miles (21 km) west-northwest of Cirencester and 26 miles (42 km) north-east of the city of Bristol. London is 91 miles (146 km) east-southeast of Stroud and the Welsh border at Whitebrook, Monmouthshire, is 19 miles (31 km) to the west. Though officially not part of the town itself, the contiguous civil parishes of Rodborough and Cainscross form part of Stroud's urban area and are generally recognised as suburbs.

Stroud acts as a commercial centre for surrounding villages and market towns including Amberley, Bisley, Bussage, Chalford, Dursley, Eastcombe, Eastington, King's Stanley, Leonard Stanley, Minchinhampton, Nailsworth, Oakridge, Painswick, Randwick, Selsley, Sheepscombe, Slad, Stonehouse, Brimscombe & Thrupp, Whiteshill and Woodchester.^{[better source needed]}

In March 2021 The Sunday Times named Stroud the best place to live in the UK, citing the town's abundance of green spaces, independent spirit, and high quality of schools.

Stroud was named La Strode in a document of 1221, though most early records use the spelling Stroud. The Old English name Strōd refers to a "marshy land overgrown with brushwood". Although the name is now pronounced to rhyme with "proud", its original pronunciation survives in the Kent town of Strood, which has the same etymology.

Stroud is known for its involvement in the Industrial Revolution. It was a cloth town: woollen mills were powered by the small rivers which flow through the five valleys, and supplied from Cotswold sheep which grazed on the hills above. Particularly noteworthy was the production of military uniforms in the colour Stroudwater Scarlet. Stroud became known for its production of broadcloth, which was widely known as "Stroud cloth" and traded around the world. The area became home to a sizable Huguenot community in the 17th century, fleeing from persecution in Catholic France, followed by a significant Jewish presence in the 19th century, linked to the tailoring and cloth industries. There were two synagogues by 1889, but these became disused by around 1908.

Stroud was an industrial and trading location in the 19th century, and so needed transport links. It first had a canal network in the form of the Stroudwater Navigation and the Thames & Severn Canal, both of which survived until the early 20th century. Restoration of these canals as a leisure facility by a partnership of Stroud District Council and the Cotswold Canals Trust is well under way with a multimillion-pound Lottery grant. Stroud railway station (on the Gloucester–Swindon Golden Valley Line) was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

Though there is much evidence of early historic settlement and transport, Stroud parish was originally part of Bisley, and only began to emerge as a distinct unit in the 13th century, taking its name from the marshy ground at the confluence of the Slad Brook and the River Frome called "La Strode", and was first recorded in 1221. The church was built by 1279, and it was assigned parochial rights by the rectors of Bisley in 1304, often cited as the date of Stroud's foundation.