Dymock - Forest ? (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Saturday, March 02, 2013, 15:57 (4279 days ago) @ slowhands

Hi S,
the Leadon eh, never thought of that but makes good sense, thanks. Since my schooldays I've heard & read the Forest lies "twixt Severn & Wye", but they rarely comment on the northern boundary - perhaps as per my post they were themselves unsure. In the last hour I've felt impelled to learn a little about the Leadon, didnt realise it had given its name to Ledbury, shame on me especially as I've always enjoyed waterways but I knew precious little about this one !.

Hi John,
I'm only too pleased to try and help, altho wouldnt call you "unknowing" especially with your long history researching the Dean. I deliberatly didn't mention the Hundred as this is perhaps an outdated definition nowadays plus I was sure you'd know about that. These photos might help you, a great site to help visualise any area.
http://www.geograph.org.uk/search.php?i=40039010

This is another website you'll hopefully find interesting John.
http://www.royalforestofdean.info/leadon-vale/
Despite the website name this opening page states
"To the north of the Royal Forest of Dean is the Vale of Leadon; here you will find the market town of Newent and the village of Dymock. In complete contrast to the forest and the Wye Valley the area provides a mixture of market gardens, rolling farmland hills, vineyards and black and white timbered buildings. The Vale of Leadon is a quintessentially unspoilt English area centred around the picturesque town of Newent."

So despite the writer essentially saying the Vale is outside of Dean (pleasingly he/she seems to agree with my thinking, phew!), I think from a tourism industry viewpoint it was felt logical to include the Vale under the overall FoD banner, just as this FoD FH site quite correctly does too for slightly different reasons.

John, as you must have read elsewhere I suspect Dymock's main claim to fame are the "Dymock Poets". A year or so ago the BBC Countryfile programme visited the area (in yet another helpful nod to local tourism in recent years!), if you can find a copy of it it's good watching.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0110kgm

Really pleased you found my post of interest, must admit I was worried lest I inadvertantly caused offence to the good people of the area, it's difficult sitting on the fence when I was myself unsure where the "fence" was !! - thanks again Slowhands for clarifying things.