with the GWR logo) and a small pay-and-display car park. The station is unstaffed with tickets purchased via a ticket machine. There is an ongoing campaign to reopen the old Midland Railway Station near Court View, or build a new station further up the line in the north of the town which would then link Stonehouse directly to the Midlands and to the South West. Growth Stonehouse development was partly due to good communications for transport, In 1779, the Stroudwater Navigation, (now part of the Thames and Severn Canal) was cut and relics of the canal can still be seen. Business increased further when the land was prepared for the opening of the Midland Railway Station in 1844, and the Great Western Railway Station a year later. The Stonehouse and Nailsworth Railway opened a branch to Nailsworth in 1867 and Stroud in 1885. World War 2 When the threat of war became clear in the late 1930s, the Cotswolds were seen as a suitable location for the dispersement of aerospace shadow factories, being a safe place away from German bombers range. Smiths were co-located to Bishops Cleeve and Stonehouse was chosen as a good place to build factories for the manufacturers Sperry's Gyroscope Company, who moved to Bond's Mill and Hoffmann's Bearings located to Oldends Lane. These two factories employed many people during the war and for a long time afterwards ensuring employment in the town for many years. The Gatehouse at Bonds Mill was originally constructed during World War II as a defensive pillbox. It is a rare example of a two-storey pillbox with a rooftop gun emplacement and is a Grade II listed building. It is now used as a visitor centre run by the Cotswold Canals Trust. Original air-raid shelters still exist nearby, being used as stores. There are the remains of a more conventional pillbox located on the railway at the canal crossing (2021) which may not survive the new bridge scheduled for Christmas 2021. On 12 September 1940, a lone Dornier flew along the Stroud Valley and photographed the area. Detailed mapping of the Sperry factory was noted by German Intelligence, in preparation for a raid in February 1943, although this never occurred. Post War Rationalisation of the railways happened quickly after the Second World War, with passenger services being suspended on the Stroud and Nailsworth branch in 1947, and to freight in 1966, though