1987-1988

A 1903 watercolour

The Cainscross Toll House and No. 1 Bridge Street were purchased in August 1987 from the Gloucester and Severnside Co-Operative Society Ltd, after many months of bargaining. The purchase price of £21,000 was provided by a mortgage from Barclay’s Bank. The Toll House on stylistic evidence dates from the construction of the new Cainscross-Stroud Road of 1825. It was depiked in 1877 and sold to a local Innkeeper for £130.

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There had been a previous toll-house on the site, built in the c.1720′s collecting tolls on the turnpike road from Cirencester via Minchinhampton and Rodborough, through Dudbridge along Bridge Street and across the River Severn via Randwick and Painswick. This had been destroyed in a riot against toll-houses in 1734.

The completed Toll House 1989

The Toll House in its derelict state had lost its crenellations form above the bav front window. Gone also was the charge board and there had been alterations of doors and windows. The watercolour painting in Stroud Musium in the Park by Paul Smith dated 1903 shows a central door with windows on either side; however, the evidence on the ground and an old photograph showed that the door on the right was original.

The Stroud Preservation Trust Ltd. restored the ashlar frontage to a high standard, leaving the door on the right and windows in the centre. Plans were drawn by Fielden Clegg Design, of Bath and planning permission granted, to convert the building into three, small two-bedroomed houses for first time buyers. (History courtesy of Christopher Cox)

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