School at Bilson Road Cinderford (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Saturday, February 09, 2013, 16:42 (4396 days ago) @ ACP

hi ACP,
yes you're right, that's a truly excellent website, hidden within is a huge amount of information and many old photos etc just as you say. Like you I came across it by search-engine. I found the history of Bilson School particularly interesting as since a baby I lived nearby in newly built (1961) houses in Parragate just along from the school above the old Green & school playing field.

NOTE, the link in ACP's post is u/s, and should now read
http://way-mark.co.uk/foresthaven/livnhist/0liked00.htm

The introduction was good too, describing the old pits that had once been on the Green below our house.
"All over the open greens were small pits -Prospect, Spero, Tormentor, Teaseall, Bilson Winner, Paragon (which gave its name to Parragate) and Leather."
http://way-mark.co.uk/foresthaven/livnhist/0liked20.htm
And a period photo from 1975
http://way-mark.co.uk/foresthaven/livnhist/slide043.htm#

This explains the piles of spoil that dotted the Green, great for small boys on bikes, not to mention a regular supply of small lumps of coal out of our garden's soil as dad strove to dig manure into it for his spuds. The house deeds show it was built on old miners' cottages, apparently when it rained hard the water came down the little lane (that now goes upto Lidl's carpark), thro our front gate - the cottage owner opened her front & back doors & swept the rain straight thro the house !. Those old flagstones are now footpaths in mum's garden, and thankfully there's a council drain at the bottom of the lane to stop her house getting flooded !.
These old mine workings also explain why the School and some houses suffered subsidence from being built over culverts & mine workings. Also the sinkhole the width of our road that appeared overnight twixt our house and Bilson school. When the Cedar Dean housing was built over the Green in the 1980s the new house nearest the School & Parragate Road effectively became "earthquake-proof", being eventually sat on a solid concrete base several feet deep; this was the entrygate corner of the main playing field, always a boggy area.... my Dad photographed a JCB sat INSIDE the hole at this spot, trying to find solid ground, they eventually gave up and pumped a few tankers of concrete in !

This prior thread details the excellent Scrapbook of 1965 Cinderford which is available on cd-rom from Cinderford Library, among many very informative Chapters all about Cinderford is a good section with photos about the School c1965, so just a few years before I attended and still the same highly-respected key staff.
http://www.forum.forest-of-dean.net/index.php?id=40031

This webpage has a rather earlier pupil's recollections of life at Bilson School around abt 1920, very interesting again with photos.
http://website.lineone.net/~glb1/cinderford/bilson.htm

Think I'm right in saying they closed Bilson school for H&S reasons due to fear of the old workings below. When it was demolished some of us local past-pupils bought some of the old school pews as momentos of our very happy school days under the kindly Headmaster Harold Williams and many teachers such as Miss Drewett(who succeeded Mr Williams after I'd moved on), Mr Timbrell and Mr Bonser.

Happy Days !