It was our 20th anniversary at easter, a date which moves from year to year, and we decided to spend the weekend around the town of stroud in gloucestershire. it’s a nice market town with winding streets and a good farm produce market, but DOES STROUD HAVE ANY GRAFFITI? thankfully i can report “yes”…
the town centre was the obvious place to start our tour and we found a piece right on the forecourt of stroud railway station, a carousel stencil running round a planter. the piece is by knight, a local artist who wishes to remain anonymous, despite the piece being awarded a civic prize of £10,000. knight’s work around town stands out as perhaps the most thoughtful, but he is not alone, as a mural off high street proves, where freshco and infinite demonstrate their own skills with a stencil.
exploring the alleyways around the centre some more, we found knight has made his mark and done much to add to stroud’s atmosphere.
further afield there are more nooks and crannies well suited to vandalism and writing, especially all the railway arches and peripheral routes. we found a seam amongst the arches behind waitrose car park and took a nice walk along the river to another spot at the other end of the path.
wall of graffiti behind waitrose car park
detail of some stencils along a wall near bath road and the river
perhaps our best discovery from a walking point of view was a seam of pieces found down a road opposite the clothiers arms on bath road. this lovely path leads down past redbrick warehouses to a mill by the river. along its path are a series of stencils and throw ups, which is picked up to some degree on the other side of the mill, along a path leading alongside a long wall heading back towards town. there are a couple of interesting stencils by infinite, plus work by someone called bnz? bnze? cute anyway.
infinite lady stencil on path leading down to old woollen mill, stroud
while we felt we got a good look at what’s on offer in stroud, we didn’t find everything by any means. one day is not enough to look and find it all, plus we had to take refuge in a pub while the town was hit by a sudden snowstorm! that said, we found enough to come to the conclusion that it’s certainly worth a visit.
the photos can be found on flickr