Stratford Park

Stratford Park is a green flag awarded area of Stroud in Gloucestershire, south west England. With a large park and lake, and a leisure centre complex, Stratford Park is a major tourist area for Stroud. It is located on the outskirts of Stroud near Paganhill and Whiteshill. It is also the site of the first wholly successful British campaign to save trees from road-widening.

In 1975 the Leisure Centre building was opened within the grounds of The Park to provide a whole new range of leisure provisions for the people of Stroud. The leisure centre offers plenty of facilities including a gym, 25 metre indoor swimming pool with viewing area, outdoor pool (with rare 10m cast-in-situ curved concrete 3-level diving board), trampolining, three sports halls, outdoor astroturf all-weather pitch, hard court tennis courts, and a bowls pitch. There are also squash courts and badminton courts. Social events are also held at the leisure centre.

The traditional park includes a Victorian bandstand which hosts band concerts during the summer, and there is plenty of space for dog walking and other leisure activities. There is a lake which is often used for angling competitions. It contains many fish and ducks and swans. There is a 6-inch (150 mm) scale model railway track skirting the lake.

Museum in the Park
The park also features Museum in the Park, a museum of local history and culture which opened in 2001. The museum is the successor to the Cowle Museum, which opened in 1930, which became the Stroud District (Cowle) Museum in 1983. Admission is free. Schools frequently use some of the activities and resources it has to offer.