The place name 'Strode' is first recorded in the  early thirteenth century: it has been suggested that it refers to a piece of  marshy ground at the junction of the River Frome and the Slad Brook.small  settlement developed nearby in a natural location on a spur of the Cotswold  Hills, at the point where several valleys converge and their watercourses drain  into the Severn Valley. 

 King Street Parade and George                                                                                                                                                                                               Holloway's statue - circa  1905.

Originally a hamlet in the parish of neighbouring  Bisley, Stroud had a chapel by the late 1200s. In 1304 it achieved parochial  status. In the late fifteenth century a dozen or so houses were recorded and,  by the early 1600s, it boasted both a fair and a market. During the following  century and a half expansion was rapid and in 1779 it was linked to the Severn  by the Stroudwater Canal.decade later the Thames and Severn Canal was also  opened, allowing for the transport of cargo eastward to the capital.

Stroud  became a Parliamentary Borough in 1832, returning two members.After 1845, when  the railway arrived, the canals declined rapidly in  importance.

Agriculture apart, for centuries the traditional source of  employment in the Stroud area was the woollen cloth industry - especially the  manufacture of fine scarlet used for military uniforms.

Part of a panoramic view of Stroud from Rodborough Common - painted  in 1844 the picture now hangs in Stroud Museum. 

By the early nineteenth  century, however, woollen cloth production had moved from its cottage-based  origins into the complex of mills that line the valley bottoms and form such a  distinctive feature of Stroud's industrial landscape.

Adapting a machine used for cutting the nap on  cloth, Edwin Beard Budding, early in the nineteenth century, invented the  lawnmower, an example of which is to be seen in the new Museum in the  Park.

Other local industries included brewing, boat building at  Brimscombe, carpet weaving, iron founding and quarrying the local oolitic  limestone.

Russell Street and the recently                                                                constructed, Sim's clock - circa  1922.

Stroud's earliest buildings lie mostly along the upper High  Street and on the hill slopes to which it leads.However, by the early  nineteenth century, the focal centre of the town had moved downhill with the  development of George Street and London Road, together with Russell Street and  John Street - both named in honour of Lord John Russell, M.P. for the  Division.

Later Victorian town expansion led to the creation  of Kendrick Street and Gloucester Street, both predominantly constructed in red  brick.Among many buildings worthy of note in the town centre are the Station  and Brunei's goods shed, the former Hill Paul and Co.'s clothing factory, the  Subscription Rooms - built in 1833 to a design by George Basevi - and Bedford  Street Congregational Church, which opened in 1837.The Parish Church of St.  Lawrence, almost entirely rebuilt in the 1860s, and the Old Town Hall of around  1590 comprise an interesting group, together with the Shambles nearby, with its  eighteenth century butchers' stalls Stroud Subscription Rooms - circa  1903

The School of Science and Art in Lansdown,  1899, is also an impressive structure. Mention might also be made of Sims'  distinctive clock at the junction of George Street with Russell Street and the  statue in Rowcroft commemorating clothing manufacturer, social reformer and M.  P. George Holloway, who is credited with introducing powered sewing machines  into Britain.