Can anyone help with the exact location and history of the Cinderford School and its surroundings(especially Coopers Tump) listed in the East Dean, Saint John District, of the 1851 Census.

I would like to know more about the location of 3 pages in particular as some of my ancestors are listed on these. Any information or suggestions for further research would be most appreciated. The Census pages are:-

HO107 piece: 1959 folio: 223 page 19
Schedule no.
63 - Coopers Tump (Holder)
64 - Cinderford School
65 - White Hart (St Whites Rd?)
HO107 piece: 1959 folio: 224 page 20
66 - Coopers Tump (Cooper)
67 - (Cooper)
68 - (Cooper)
69 - (Matthews)
HO107 piece: 1959 folio: 224 page 21
70 - Bridge Inn (recently demolished?)
71 - Rd? Cinderford (Powell)
72 - Rd? Cinderford (Griffin)
73 - (Baker)
74 - Coopers Tump (Gardiner)

Hi Daffodil,

a good start is always the definitive British History website, in this case

"and in the 1840s the area near the bridge was chosen as the site for a school and a church. Later in the century the settlement grew into a small town with many of its shops, inns, and other meeting places to the north on or near the Littledean-Nailbridge road. The town continued to expand in the 20th century and extensive industrial development took place there after the Second World War.
In 1832 there were c. 51 dwellings east of the brook at Cinderford bridge, in the area then called Lower Cinderford. Most were south of the road (St. White's Road) on Ruspidge Meend, which belonged to the Abbots wood estate and where Edward Protheroe built cottages, including several terraces, for miners in his employment. In 1841 the settlement at the bridge included a chapel and two beerhouses. On the hillside to the north-east, known as Cinderford Tump, the White Hart inn had opened by 1834 and, to the west, a school was built by Edward Protheroe in 1840 and the church of St. John the Evangelist was opened in 1844. At the ironworks, which stood 800 m. north of Cinderford bridge, cottages were built at the bottom of the later Victoria Street to the south-east. In 1832 the area, known as Upper Cinderford, included c. 38 houses, mostly terraced cottages provided by the ironworks' owners, and a beerhouse called the Forge Hammer."
From: 'Forest of Dean: Settlement', A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 5: Bledisloe Hundred, St. Briavels Hundred, The Forest of Dean (1996), pp. 300-325.
URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=23266
Date accessed: 03 April 2014.

To make any further clarification easier for us all can you please advise if you know Cinderford at all, does any of the above fit what you do, don't, know ?. Effectively the town started off at the far eastern(Ruspidge) end, at the Bridge and rising above it is the Tump (nowadays called St White's Hill, not sure yet about Cooper's?) where St John's church is. In the early Census's this area was sometimes called Woodside before becoming known as Cinderford.
These very old photos are taken from Ruspidge looking back north across that area. Cinderford grew westwards from here, so away from the camera "behind" the church
http://www.forest-of-dean.net/gallery/cinderford/mediafiles/l8.jpg
http://www.forest-of-dean.net/gallery/cinderford_2/mediafiles/l55.jpg

This view is taken from the southwest side of the town, aka "Valley Road", showing the growth, St John's Church can be seen on the Tump to the right. The area at front shows the mine workings etc. The large building at extreme left on the skyline is, I think, the tall(for it's day) Baptist Chapel which stands out in many old photos.
The "modern day" town centre (Commercial St, Market St, the Triangle, shops etc) are all still further north to the viewer's left, out of shot of this photo.
http://www.forest-of-dean.net/gallery/cinderford/mediafiles/l56.jpg
This one shows more of the growth northwards from St John's Tump end of town.
http://www.forest-of-dean.net/gallery/cinderford_2/mediafiles/l63.jpg

Studying the Old Maps site will help, suggest search for "Stockwell Green" which is just above S John's Church. Sadly the oldest map on the site is from 1881, but is still a good guide to the area.
http://www.old-maps.co.uk/maps.html

NB: My old school Bilson, shown in some of this's sites Gallery photos, is a later and different school to the Protheroe School mentioned in the above text, and in a different location on what is now Station Street.
http://www.forest-of-dean.net/gallery/cinderford/

Here is some more detail about Cinderford's first school.

"The earliest day schools in Cinderford were evidently small private schools such as the seven recorded in that part of the Forest in 1833. They taught between 7 and 30 children and five had been started after 1822. In 1840 the colliery owner Edward Protheroe built a school at Cinderford Tump for the benefit of families in his employ and funded it by fees and a levy on his workforce. After 1843, when he handed it over to the Crown in part payment of debts, Protheroe was in dispute with the minister of the neighbouring church of St. John the Evangelist about the school's management and in 1847 the Commissioners of Woods acting for the Crown placed it under the sole care of the deputy surveyor of the Forest. During that period attendances, by children and adults up to the age of 22, sometimes exceeded 280, and income included a grant from the Great Western Railway Co. besides the Crown's contribution and school pence. In 1855, following a reduction in funds, control of the school was transferred to St. John's parish. As St. John's school it reopened in 1857 with boys' and girls' departments and soon had an average attendance of 112. A National school, it received regular financial support from the Crawshay family and the Crown. In 1883 it passed to the school board, which ran it with junior mixed and infants' departments until 1887, when it was replaced by St. White's school. The building was a church hall in 1992."
From: 'Forest of Dean: Education', A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 5: Bledisloe Hundred, St. Briavels Hundred, The Forest of Dean (1996), pp. 405-413.
URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=23274
Date accessed: 03 April 2014.

Back in the mid 80s I played recreational badminton with a group of friends in a small hall near to St John's Church, handlily placed just below the White Hart pub. This wooden hall was just large enough to house one badminton court, nonplaying members had to sit on the relatively high stage, the horizontal wooden trusses supporting the roof apex were a continual problem altho getting a lucky rebound occasionally gave sneaky points. We called it the Church Hall, I can only presume it was the old school building as mentioned above.

It appears to be "on the market", location details and a good set of photos here including those beams ;-)

http://www.brutonknowles.co.uk/property-finder?view=property&id=2041

(update-it seems this link is now dead, the details were from 2012, perhaps its now sold. If you search tinternet for "Cinderford St Johns Church Hall Bruton Knowles" you should soon find the above webpages and some nice photos)

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This reminds me, of course, that as well as "my" Bilson School serving the newer/far end of the town, there was also of course St Whites school midway up St Whites Hill. Bilson had both Infant/Primary Schools, I think St White's may have been just an Infant School ?. Bilson has long since closed, I guess St Whites' days may also be numbered by now, although recently there has been extensive new housing built very closeby so ??. Both these schools date from later than the St Johns school, c1880, as this old post shows, the subsequent thread contains links to a couple of sites of personal recollections describing life at these schools in the early 1900s.
http://forum.forest-of-dean.net/index.php?id=15029
http://www.st-whites.gloucs.sch.uk/Contact-Us/

--------------

This is an excellent site for the history of Cinderford and rewards persistent browsing with excellent photos and text.
http://way-mark.co.uk/foresthaven/historic/cintrst1.htm
http://way-mark.co.uk/foresthaven/livnhist/0liked00.htm

This is brilliant? It is my first posting, so thank you so much for the quick reply and the valuable information. I know the area of today quite well as I moved to Ruspidge 8 years ago. Much of the research I'm doing is for my husband's family who were all Foresters.

What I'm trying to do now is add some bones to the earlier family history. From your reply it seems likely that the family (Griffin) may have attended the school in question. Do you know if there are any of the 1840-50 school registers in existence?

I'm familiar with the names Woodside and Flaxley as I've found a large number of ancestors on various census living in these areas. Looking again at my 1851 copy it seems from your information that the word rd? (I thought road) is Lr (as in Lower Cinderford). This is most helpful. I've located the family on the 1841 census too, they are listed at Cinderford, Dean Forest, Little Dean Walk - it seems that this might be the same place as the 1851 census judging from the photo of St Johns, Ruspidge.

I note that St Johns was not built until 1844 - if that is the case I was wondering where any baptisms might have taken place for people living in the area between 1830 and 1842, as I cannot find any record of their births, though all claim on later census as being born in East Dean.

Many thanks again for your help.

Hi,
thanks for your kind words, it's my pleasure. Also for saying you're in the exact area, Ruspidge, a great help for us to know when replying (we often get posters from t'other side of the country and even world). I was born in Cinderford and lived there til the 1980s, family still there, so I found it quite a shock to find it was not shown on early c1800 maps of the area unlike say Littledean and Flaxley which to me at the time seemed "unimportant"... Hence the address placenames vary thro the Census's as often it was the Census officials who gave an area it's name on the form, hence they use the "official" local Government/Parish names such as Woodside, East Dean before the term Cinderfod comes along later in the 1800s - all very confusing to me until I started using this great forum a few years back, it seemed the people were moving when in fact it was the placenames changing ! Unfortunately the use of "East Dean" on the later Census' isn't helpful, as this was rather a large area not just Cinderford; a better source of info for those people's birthplaces etc is perhaps the Parish Records where available. The best method to familarise yourself with the old places and names is to use old maps where possible.

Re the school registers, I don't know but doubt they still exist from that long ago. I suggest the best place to search would be Gloucester Archives, don't forget to try all variations of John & Johns & John's, as hits vary accordingly.
http://ww3.gloucestershire.gov.uk/DServe/DServe.exe?dsqApp=Archive&dsqDb=Catalog&am...
and http://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/archives/article/103152/Gloucestershire-Archives

Luckily for you a good start for all FoD Local History is nearyou at Cinderford Library aka "Local Studies", altho I expect you've tried there.
The Gage Library at Soudley Heritage centre is also worth asking.
http://www.deanheritagecentre.com/museum/aboutthegagelibrary.htm

To be absolutely honest I don't know where Baptisms etc took place before St Johns was built, I presume at Littledean Church which is centuries older ?. Before this time(c1800) this side of the plateau of the "inner/high" Forest (ie above Littledean Hill from Littledean/Flaxley side) was relatively uninhabited, certainly in the Cinderford area, until the Industrial Revolution took off and an influx of miners and metalworkers started arriving in numbers. Again the British History website is a great reference source in this respect.
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=23266#s2

------------

UPDATE:
From the above online archives sites I can only find one reference at Gloster Archive, namely
"D2186/40 Cinderford: plans and elevations of St. John's School 1858"

And the following booklet held at Cinderford Library that may be of interest
"Cinderford Local Studies Centre, Title: Short history of St John the evangelist parish church, Cinderford
Compiler Smith, Sheila c1984, 28 pages."

Hi again Daffodil,
re which Churches the residents of Cinderford might have used before St Johns was built, as well as Littledean, they might have used the Holy Trinity Church at Drybrook/Harrow Hill. This was the very first Church built within the "high/inner" Forest, again from the British History site

"HOLY TRINITY at Harrow Hill, near Drybrook, known locally as the Forest church, was opened in 1817 and consecrated later the same year. It was built as a free chapel by its first minister, Henry Berkin, then curate of Weston under Penyard, who began holding services in the Forest in 1812 while at Mitcheldean ..........
Berkin, under whom the church was attended by people from as far away as Lea Bailey, Pope's Hill, Blaize Bailey, Cinderford, and Lydbrook, was sometimes styled a perpetual curate. From 1821, when he also had the cure of Hope Mansell (Herefs.) adjoining the Forest, he was assisted by a curate, whose stipend was paid by a benefactor. Berkin entrusted the curate with a mission to Lydbrook, for which he built a Sunday schoolroom. Isaac Bridgman, the first curate, also preached at Littledean Hill, Cinderford, and Gunn's Mills but his affinities with nonconformist preachers led to his estrangement from Berkin and in 1822 to the revoking of his licence and to an interdict against his officiating in any church in the diocese."
From: 'Forest of Dean: Churches', A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 5: Bledisloe Hundred, St. Briavels Hundred, The Forest of Dean (1996), pp. 389-396.
URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=23271
Date accessed: 04 April 2014.

In those days people were used to riding or more probably walking a few miles for work every day, so a similar journey to Church wasn't an issue.

You know Abbotswood# petrol station on the righthand side when going down Lower High Street, Cinderford ?. Just before you reach it there's a crossroads, turn right up into Albion Place, left (by Chinese takeaway?) down towards Denecroft then Valley Road.
This 1975 photo was taken from bottom at Denecroft looking up towards the highstreet
http://way-mark.co.uk/foresthaven/livnhist/slide074.htm#

I used to wondered why that road was so straight and raised above the old houses(far left-hand side of photo), especially before the newer housing was added at Denecroft ?. Well before being a road it was a mine tramway (early horsedrawn railway), if you follow it up across High Street into Albion Place it takes you up to the edge of Haywood, the track splits left & right if I recall correctly (the tramway used to go to the right, up to St Annals iron mine on the top of Littledean Hill). If you can imagine continuing along the left track so staying on the level, you'll pass out of town behind Springfield Drive & playing fields to your left and on into the wooded Haywood Inclosure below Edgehill Ridge. Keep going straight ahead, past the old Haywood Level (ie mine) and you'll reach the Vicarage just below Forest Church on Harrow Hill. Despite spending many happy 70s school holidays roving thro Haywood I've never walked the whole route upto the Church, but that was the route some Cinderford churchgoers used, a shortcut compared to the modern road out via Steam Mills & Nailbridge.

See these old maps, a great site once you get the hang of it, zooming-into a map will open it out into greater detail, can also "drag" the map using a mouse pointer. Below the maps is a key to the date of the map being displayed, in this case the "19th century map" is very early, from 1831, so perfect for your timescales. You can see how insignificant "new" Cinderford almost appears compared to the much more "senior" Littledean, Abenhall etc. http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/20228

[# why not Haywood !?]

Once again, many thanks for your information and suggestions for further research, it's a great help. I will begin to follow up these leads.

You have clarified what I suspected about the census areas changing not the people moving. My own ancestors at this time were yeoman farmers in Somerset/Dorset, so I've found it much easier to pin their locations down. The Forest is proving quite a challenge to an intermediate FH researcher like myself - and I've not started on the West Dean side of the family yet!

It would be interesting to see if I can identify the cottage location now. I think I will see if Gloucester archive has rent books or tithe maps of the area.

Further to St Johns hall (aka Cinderford School) by the White Hart. After reading your first reply a friend says he thinks this hall was used as a medical centre or suchlike, he says children had their inoculations there when he was young.

I'm sure you're right about the Church Hall being used for innoculations etc. I hope you were able to find the Bruton Knowles pages & photos. This forum sometimes references another FoD Old Photos website, that has a few old(ish) photos of functions within the Hall.

Re our confusing Parish name changes, thats a VERY common question for newcomers to the site, it certainly baffled me for a while and I was born in the area !. Just one of this forum's prior threads on this subject is below (hint, always search the forum, very often a question has already been answered).
http://forum.forest-of-dean.net/index.php?id=37803

This whole site was revamped a few months ago, so unfortunately some of the old links won't work. The old parish Maps referred to may be found here, under "Forest of Dean" heading on the home page "toolbar".
http://forest-of-dean.net/index.php/the-forest-of-dean/maps-of-the-forest

Another helpful(I hope) post is here, you may need it when you start on West Dean as that area gains the "advantages" of overlapping the borders of Herefordshire and Monmouthshire and Wales too !!... I found the Genuki site a real help, plus my love of old maps.
http://forum.forest-of-dean.net/index.php?id=35535

Hope this all helps, happy hunting.

About 1670 to allow proper management of the Royal Forest and ensure adequate supplies of fully-grown oak etc for Navy shipbuilding rather than charcoal-burning, the Forest was divided into areas called Walks. This was to guard the Forest against fires, and particularly to prevent incroachment (settlers building cabin homes, then perhaps damaging the woods or felling & taking wood illegally). Each Walk could now be patrolled and managed by a Keeper, reporting to the Constable at St Briavel's castle. The Keepers lived in specially-built Lodges, sited in high places to command good views across the Walk. Over the following centuries the names varied slightly, as did the areas and number of Lodges. The detailed history below describes this, note it mentions Latimer Walk and Littledean Walk. You'll probably already know of Latimer ref the School/leisure centre etc on top of Littledean Hill/Edgehill towards Collafield etc, indeed the most recent Latimer Lodge still stands up there.
I haven't heard of Littledean Walk until today, so only know what's stated here, I wonder if it was the early name for Latimer Walk ??. The old OS Maps show a Littledean Walk but this extends quite a distance, coincidentally given the earlier post it seems to stretch right across the top of Cinderford from Littledean Hill to near Forest Church at Harrow Hill, Also note this link shows Gunn's Mills as being part of Littledean Walk in 1752, this is t'other side of Edgehill/Littledean Hill from Cinderford down near Flaxley, so clearly this was quite a large area and not helpfull in defining your ancestor's address, sorry. Perhaps in 1841 it was the name of a lane or road near Cinderford Bridge, perhaps the start of the long Littledean Walk ??

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=23266
Particularly "Table II: Cottages and Encroachments on Crown Lands 1752-1834"

You may know that in the Forest almost any small hill/hillock tends to be called a Tump. Often these are old spoil heaps from quarrying or mining. I've never heard of Cooper's Tump and despite extensive searching cannot find any reference to it, sorry. HOWEVER I suspect it's related to Cooper's Level, as per this entry in the definitive website re FoD COAL mining. (NB a "level" is a mine in FoD parlance).

"Cooper's Level
1841 Edward Protheroe (as mortgagee in possession under William Todd, who claimed through or under a Free Miner)
8 March 1841 That some interest in Cooper’s Level is claimed by William Crawshay and Moses Teague.
Cooper’s Level Colliery included Quidchurch Engine, Old Arles and Meerbrook High Delf gales.
Coal in the Trenchard and Hill Delf veins.
F3 286 c1847 Coopers Level. Ed Protheroe. Not worked.
22 November 1889 Gloucestershire Banking Co. registered owners together with Findall Mine Level and Wallsend (below).
F3 696 28 December 1897 Application George Morgan.
2 September 1898 Granted. Then sold to Mr. Albert Jones of Cinderford.
10 March 1899 Walmer’s Pit, Ruspidge for sayle by order of Albert Jones.
30 November 1903 Mr. Auguste Trapnell working Findall Mine Level (below) adjoining and was prepared to purchase Cooper’s Level from Morgan who was now over 80. Morgans’ sons working Foundry Colliery (below). The transfer to Jones had never been completed.
17 October 1904 Purchase had fallen through and George Morgan had died.
Forfeited. "

From the excellent http://www.lightmoor.co.uk/forestcoal/CoalCoopers.html
(NB reference to Edward Protheroe, of St John's School fame).

The same website carries this excellent map from 1894, black spots are coal mines and brown spots are iron mines.
http://www.lightmoor.co.uk/forestcoal/East%20Dean.JPG

Altho' Cooper's Level coalmine isn't specifically marked on the mines map the aforementioned Quidchurch is, all these workings eventually became part of the very extensive Shakemantle iron ore mine, which itself was the southernmost end of about 2miles of workings extending north below Littledean Hill & Ruspidge, including & linked-underground with St Annals and Buckshaft iron mines among others. Shakemantle was the Dean's biggest producer of iron ore, peaking in the 1880s and supplying Teague's Cinderford Iron Works.
The excellent book "The Forest of Dean Branch" by Ian Pope & Paul Karau, Wild Swan publications #, states that these mines were "held under a lease for 1000 years from 1834 granted by Richard Cooper", and by 1841 the gales(mines) were owned by Crawshay & Teague as stated above. I don't know more about Richard Cooper, altho this site's PRs contain several Coopers in the Cinderford St John area, and quite a few Richard Coopers, all predated by an 1803 Marriage for a Richard Cooper at Littledean (perhaps ref our discussion earlier wrt Churchgoing pre 1844 ??).

I can only guess that maybe "Cooper's Tump" was an early name for the Shakemantle / Ruspidge end of "Cinderford Tump" ie the part of Littledean Hill stretching south into Ruspidge ?

So, again nothing even remotely definitive regarding the census locations, sorry... ??

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# Cinderford Library has copies of this and other books in this local railway history series, Ian Pope is a wellknown Cinderford railway & industrial history writer, the books carry hundreds of superb old photos and maps and are highly recommended to anyone with an interest in local history.

The aforementioned Mines Map shows a brown line towards the top R/H corner, ie Ruspidge and Cinderford Bridge, this is the route of the Great Western Railway from Cinderford & Ruspidge via Soudley to Bullo, on the Severn near Newnham. A very short section of this can still be seen where the old Ruspidge Halt was, just above Cinderford Bridge towards Lightmoor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruspidge_Halt_railway_station
http://www.sungreen.co.uk/Cinderford-Glos/ruspidge_halt.html

===========================

Can I suggest that if you get no luck at Cinderford Library or Gloster Archives, you write an open letter to the local newspapers with your queries - my sister works the front desk at The Forester in Cinderford for example, she says they're always happy to print such letters if time & space permits. Hopefully someone with much better local knowledge than me will help you. If you do please advise us your findings via this thread, thanks.

Jeff
I must thank you again for all the information you have posted to this thread. It has helped me enormously, and I will of course post any new findings, and hope that others will find it interesting and useful too.

Connections with Today
My husband is a keen railway modeller and I'm an enthusiastic Family Historian, as the saying goes, "ne'er the twain shall meet"; that is until now!!

We own a copy of 'The Forest of Dean Branch' Vol. 1, signed by Ian Pope. Having browsed through it again, I've found much that is connected to my original post - so some information about the area, appears to be right here on my own bookshelf!

Incidentally, our cottage was once owned by Henry Crawshay and we're fairly sure he purchased it from a Cooper (not sure which one though). We will have to get our deeds (which date back to c1740) out of store sometime to check. The cottage is clearly visible on various plates in the aforementioned book, pages 139, 161, 175. The plate on p160 is of the Eastern United pit-head baths, which opened on 17th February 1951 and was demolished in early May about 4 years ago. I took photographs from my garden at the time of demolition and will post one to the site.

Perhaps I should start a new thread for all this information, but for now I think I have more than enough to be getting on with.

Once again many thanks for all your help.

Again thanks for your kind words, much appreciated, I do my best but am only an enthusiastic amateur.
I'm very pleased and a little envious your house has been included in such good books, and that you have such a long documented history of it, very interesting indeed !. I hope your house's life story might be part of a future post ?.

Re old photos of the Ruspidge area, in case you haven't come across them may I recommend two websites where prints can be obtained from the old photos, both owned by keen local historians. The first is from Neil Parkhouse, of Lightmoor Press fame (with Ian Pope), they produce railway & industrial history journals that your husband may be aware of, often with FoD articles, plus other excellent books.

http://www.archive-images.co.uk/index.search.php?cmd=doSearch&new=1&keywords_si...

http://www.lightmoor.co.uk/index.php

http://www.forestprints.co.uk/cinderford.htm

I hope these sites are of interest, and very much look forward to your continued input into this great forum.
Thank you !

Further to my previous thread. I made a brief film of the demolition of this building because I felt that it was the end of an era event and wanted to keep a record. Does anyone know if I can post it to this site?

You may be interested in this letter, dated March 10th 1959, from the Cinderford office of the National Union of Mineworkers, Forest of Dean Branch, to my grandfather, Mr Frank Essex, Bathurst Park Road, Lydney:-

"Dear Sir,

"The Forest of Dean Mineworkers District Committee have asked me to convey to you their thanks and appreciation for the support you gave us in our efforts to prevent the closure of the Eastern United Colliery.

"Unfortunately, we had no success. However, we wish to thank you most sincerely for your help.

"Yours sincerely, B.B. Hinton, Secretary."

My grandfather was at this time a member of Lydney Rural District Council and a circuit steward of the Pillowell Methodist Church Circuit. He once worked at Norchard Colliery and on the local railway whereby coal was taken from the Eastern United to Bullo. I think he sensed that if the Eastern United went, the doom of all commercial mining in the Forest would soon follow. If so, he wasn't wrong. He would have considered it his civic and religious duty to try to save livelihoods.

The original of the letter is in Gloucestershire Archives among historical papers of Springfield Methodist Church, Lydney.