This street scene depicts Chantler’s General Store on Yonge Street. It was the first home of the library in Stroud. The members of the Women’s Institute, seeing a need for a library donated over 100 books in 1912 to begin. The primary caretakers of the fledgling library were Mrs. A. Neelands and her brother, C.E. Chantler. The library remained at the General Store until Mrs. Neelands’ death in 1921. The building was later used as a medical centre, and as of 2020 is now in use as the first commercial art gallery in Stroud called Be Contemporary Gallery, which opened on 1 March 2020 with an exhibition called “A Leap of Faith, The making of a gallery space” and due to the Covid-19 pandemic, closed 14 days later. It reopened on 13 August 2020.
