How it all started

“What shall I do when I retire” asked my old friend Brian, gazing into his glass of beer a few summers back. What a question to ask a Family Historian!

Having just spent the last ten years researching all the branches of my family tree, and now finding that the places and times my ancestors lived in just as interesting as the challenge of finding out who they were, this seemed to me to be a rhetorical question. So, during the ensuing silence, a cunning plan formed in my mind. One that would answer both his question and my longstanding wish to document the recent history of the parish of Barnwood, here in Gloucester. This is where I had lived for the previous thirty years and whose old folk were gradually dying along with their memories.

Now, here in front of me, was a man of some sixty summers who had lived in the parish of Barnwood all his life, only leaving briefly to go to college. He was born in Barnwood, educated in the local primary school and settled down to raise a family here. Not only did he know ‘who’ but ‘what’ and ‘when’. He is an excellent communicator and has the ability to write very readable prose. The only problem  - how to explain my idea without sending him into a cold sweat?

And then I remembered the question “How do you eat an Elephant?” with its obvious answer "In small pieces”. This big project would be tackled in small, manageable pieces so as not to scare my friend and anyone else who became involved.

And so the “Barnwood Elephant” was conceived.

The Victoria History of England admirably chronicles the significant history of Barnwood from early days to the mid 20th century. There are also well researched articles on the history of Barnwood House Mental Asylum and Barnwood Court. As far as I could tell however there was very little written down about the people and events of the last hundred years. I wanted to capture this in some form before it was too late.  How had the buildings and streets changed during this time? Who had lived in these houses and what did they do? What was there before today’s skyline? What did these people do for business and pleasure? The elephant became bigger as the list became longer!

Brian  became interested in the ‘events’ that had occurred in Barnwood, especially festivities celebrating the Coronations of Elizabeth in 1953, George VI in 1936, George V in 1910, and Edward VII in 1902. I was more interested in the infrastructure as I was involved in the ‘What’s beneath your feet?’ project run by Gloucester Archives, where volunteers transcribed the Inclosure awards of 1790 for Gloucestershire. Barnwood was one of the parishes I transcribed, so I already had some knowledge of the big landowners such as John Jordan, who owned a field by the brook where, two hundred years later, Jordan’s Brook House would stand.

Some of the old footpaths can still be traced winding through the new estates of tightly clustered houses (A typical example is the old Barnwood Alley that runs almost continuously from the Cathedral to St Lawrence Church and which possibly allowed the monks to easily travel between the two.)

Barnwood was home to many well known people. Charles Wheatstone the physicist was probably born in Barnwood's 'Manor House' in 1802. 

A cathedral canon, a headmaster of the King’s school and at least one TV personality populate a list of Barnwood ‘worthies’.

Brian and I agreed to make a start. We would focus on the period from the late 1700s, when Barnwood was a small parish on the outskirts of Gloucester and had been so without much change for several hundred years. With its large fields and easy access down the old trunk road (The Roman Road - Ermine Street) to Gloucester it was said that Barnwood “fed Gloucester”. How true this statement was is debatable, but certainly in the 1930s Barnwood had its fair share of garden nurseries and residents who traded in the City of Gloucester.   

From 1900 onwards, the face of the parish changed from mainly agricultural to residential. The establishment of the Barnwood House Mental Hospital along the main road through the parish had a significant impact. The development of the Gloucester Aircraft Factory just up the road in Brockworth was also a contributory factor.  This was the time we wanted to record.

There are good accounts of the growth and influence of the Hospital, and the Victoria County History of England admirably covers the early history of Barnwood, so there was no point in duplicating these. What we wanted to do was to bring together all the interesting facts about the people, places and events that never get recorded and to do this before memories faded. 

And so the project grew and grew.

Articles for the Parish Magazine became the basis for a number of illustrated talks which were so popular that a book was requested by our audiences. This was called 'Tales of Old Barnwood' which soon sold out. A second book 'More Tales of Old Barnwood' was also popular.  A third book on Barnwood, called 'Even More Tales of Old Barnwood' was published in 2018.

We decided in 2019 to curtail our speaking engagements and ended the year with a Gloucester History Festival talk on Barnwood House Hospital. This sold out event with over 200 attendees felt a good and appropriate end to this part of our activities.

in 2023 we decided to put the project into abeyance and while there is still much to occupy our interests, any research will now be at a much reduced level.

Richard Auckland

(Updated August 2023)

Richard and Brian have lived in the parish of Barnwood for over 40 years. Brian was born and lived in the grounds of Barnwood House Hospital and Richard moved to the parish soon after his marriage in Barnwood.

Richard may be contacted by email: barnwood.elephant@btinternet.com