The Five Valleys are a group of valleys in

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, which converge on the town of

Stroud Stroud is a market town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England. It is the main town in Stroud District. The town's population was 13,500 in 2021. Below the western escarpment of the Cotswold Hills, at the meeting point of the Five ...

at the western edge of the

Cotswolds The Cotswolds (, ) is a region in central-southwest England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale. The area is defined by the bedrock of Jur ...

. The Five Valleys are notable both for the landscape, which attracts visitors, and their role in industrial development of Britain starting with the wool trade in the 11th Century, and developing through cloth manufacturing in the 18th Century. Despite very poor roads, the use of the rivers and streams in developing links to other centres, via, for example the

Thames and Severn Canal The Thames and Severn Canal is a canal in Gloucestershire in the south-west of England, which was completed in 1789. It was conceived as part of a cargo route from Bristol and the Midlands to London, linking England's two largest rivers for bett ...

, helped the Five Valleys to prosper. The valleys are as follows: * The Chalford valley (also known as the " Golden Valley") * The Nailsworth Valley - runs from Cherington, through Avening and along to Nailsworth * The Ruscombe Valley * The Slad Valley (of ''

Cider with Rosie ''Cider with Rosie'' is a 1959 book by Laurie Lee (published in the US as ''Edge of Day: Boyhood in the West of England'', 1960). It is the first book of a trilogy that continues with ''As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning'' (1969) and '' A ...

'' fame) * The Painswick Valley The Five Valleys Walk is a popular circular walk of some 21 miles (34 kilometres) around Stroud. It has been held annually since 1987, in aid of the Stroud-based

Meningitis Trust Meningitis Now is a national charity based in the United Kingdom. It was formed following a merger between the charities The Meningitis Trust and Meningitis UK in 2013. Meningitis Now is working towards a future where no one in the UK dies from meni ...

, usually on the last Sunday in September. A more exacting version of this walk has also been published, as the "Five Valleys Circuit"; this includes an ascent over the high ground of

Selsley Common Selsley is a village within the civil parish of King's Stanley and district of Stroud, in Gloucestershire, England. It is composed of around 175 houses, scattered around the western and eastern edge of a Cotswold spur, located approximately so ...

rather than the charity walk's low-level route from Stonehouse to Nailsworth, up the old railway line by the Nailsworth Stream. The Five Valleys Shopping Centre in Stroud is named after the Five Valleys.

Links

Route of the Annual Five Valleys Walk

References

*Hill, Barry ''Walking the South Gloucestershire Cotswolds'', Thornhill Press (Cheltenham) 1992 Hills of Gloucestershire Stroud District Cotswolds {{Gloucestershire-geo-stub