Slad

This article is about the village in the Cotswolds. For the Iron age site in Hertfordshire, see The Slad.

Slad
The village with Holy Trinity Church visible
Slad is located in Gloucestershire
Slad
Slad
Location within Gloucestershire
Population388 (2011 census)
OS grid referenceSO873076
Civil parish
District
Shire county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
PoliceGloucestershire
FireGloucestershire
AmbulanceSouth Western
UK Parliament
List of places
UK
England
Gloucestershire
51°46′00″N 2°11′00″W / 51.766667°N 2.183333°W / 51.766667; -2.183333
The Woolpack public house, 2004

Slad is a village in Gloucestershire, England, in the Slad Valley about 2 miles (3 km) from Stroud on the B4070 road from Stroud to Birdlip.

Slad was the home of Laurie Lee, whose novel Cider with Rosie (1959) is a description of growing up in the village from his arrival at the age of three in 1917.

Locale

The Slad Brook runs along the bottom of the valley. The small parish church, Holy Trinity Church, is a Grade II listed building[1] and there is also a small traditional pub, The Woolpack.[2]

Governance

Slad is in the civil parish of Painswick, in Stroud District, in the county of Gloucestershire[3] and the parliamentary constituency of Stroud.[3]

People

Laurie Lee's novel Cider with Rosie (1959) is a description of growing up in the village from his arrival at the age of three in 1917. Having bought a cottage there with the proceeds from the book, he returned to live permanently in the village during the 1960s after being away for thirty years.[4] Lee is buried in the village churchyard; the inscription on his headstone reads "He lies in the valley he loved".[5]

Between 1970 and 1980 the poets Frances and Michael Horovitz lived at "Mullions", the end cottage of the settlement of Piedmont in an offshoot of the valley only accessible by foot from Slad. Frances' poetry from that period often refers to the surroundings there, as does Michael's Midsummer Morning Jog Log (1986).[6] Horovitz's continued occasional residence is testified not simply by that poem but by his use of the cottage as the editorial address of his magazine New Departures into the 1990s.[7]

Polly Higgins, FRSGS was a Scottish barrister, author, and environmental lobbyist, described by Jonathan Watts in her obituary in The Guardian as, "one of the most inspiring figures in the green movement".[8] She left her career as a lawyer to focus on environmental advocacy, and unsuccessfully lobbied the United Nations Law Commission to recognise ecocide as an international crime. She died on 21 April 2019, at the age of 50[8] and is buried in Slad.[9]

References

  1. ^ Historic England. "Church of Holy Trinity (Grade II) (1091579)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 18 September 2017.
  2. ^ "Home page". The Woolpack, Slad. Archived from the original on 16 September 2017. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
  3. ^ a b "Election Maps". Ordnance Survey. Archived from the original on 5 January 2010. Retrieved 12 August 2013.
  4. ^ Passino Carla (9 September 2019). "Laurie Lee's childhood home, the house that inspired 'Cider with Rosie', is up for sale". Country Life. Archived from the original on 10 September 2019. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
  5. ^ "Write Across the West: A Walk around Slad". www.bbc.co.uk.
  6. ^ Horovitz, Michael; Blake, Peter (14 April 1986). Midsummer Morning Jog Log. Five Seasons Press. Archived from the original on 22 September 2017. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
  7. ^ Horovitz, Michael (19 May 1995). "Fiddling". The Times Literary Supplement (letter). Archived from the original on 22 September 2017. Retrieved 19 September 2017.
  8. ^ a b Jonathan Watts (22 April 2019). "Polly Higgins, lawyer who fought for recognition of 'ecocide', dies aged 50". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2 June 2019. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
  9. ^ Matty Airey (22 April 2019). "'We must build on her legacy' – MP's tribute to Polly Higgins". Stroud News & Journal. Archived from the original on 24 April 2019. Retrieved 24 April 2019.


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