Hi all,

I've recently moved into a cottage in Whitecroft. Named Yer Tiz on Parkhill. As I'm not local, I know little to nothing about my new home. I would really appreciate any insight and history of the property.

As we believe it was built in 1850, which is very early for Whitecroft, we hope it has a rich history of occupants.

If anyone has any information about the property and the street I would be super chuffed.

Hi, warm welcome to the forum and the FoD,

Love the house name ! - first time I heard "Yertiz" was a pupil at the FoD Grammar School at Berry Hill in the 70s, it was used as the name for the magazine the pupils produced as part of their annual charity week fund-raising.

Hard to tell about your specific house's history without visiting it or seeing photos, this is the "official" Whitecroft history according to the Victoria County history website;

"The village of Whitecroft, at a crossing of Cannop brook, grew up on extraparochial land and an adjoining part of Bream tithing of Newland. There was at least one cottage within the tithing in the late 17th century but most of the original dwellings, including 16 cottages recorded in 1782, were placed randomly on Crown land. To the north, terraces containing 30 cottages were built before 1834 on either side of the Severn & Wye tramroad (later railway) for employees in the Parkend collieries. They were demolished in the 20th century, one row surviving until the mid 1970s. On the east side of Whitecroft a chapel on the hillside opposite Pillowell dates from 1824 and some building had taken place on the north side of the new Bream-Yorkley road by 1878. In 1874 the main part of the village including Parkhill had 116 houses with a population of 610. To the north on the Parkend road, completed in 1903 as part of the route linking Lydney and Lydbrook, there was little building before the mid 20th century when several industrial workshops were erected. On the south side of Whitecroft, where a factory was built in 1866, industrial sites developed on both sides of the Lydney road in the later 20th century. During that period small estates of private and council houses grew up on both sides of the Yorkley road, and in the late 1980s a few private houses were built east of the Parkend road. At Parkhill, on the west side of Whitecroft where some of the early cottages on Crown land stood, there were 18 houses in 1851. In the early 20th century several houses were built to the northwest and in 1923 West Dean rural district council built seven pairs of houses north of the Bream road. More council houses were built in the 1930s and the council estate was extended northwards in 1949. Further along the Bream road several brick buildings put up in the early 20th century for Princess Royal colliery survived in 1992."

https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/glos/vol5/pp300-325
(Prob best to open any links in a new tab or window).

Earliest Trade Directory I can find that mentions Whitecroft, albeit only wrt a couple folk, is this one from 1868.
http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~cbennett/genealogy/lydney1868.htm

A few years later Whitecroft came under West Dean, and earned a paragraph of it's own, eg
http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~cbennett/genealogy/westdean1870.htm
http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~cbennett/genealogy/westdean1876.htm

Do you know any names/professions of past owners of your house, so as to be able to identify it in the old Census' etc ?. Or maybe it's near to a landmark such as old pub or Church ?.

Nice old OS map of Whitecroft area here, can zoom into see detail, c1878 so a bit later than's ideal for your house but the earliest I can find online, the Gage Library at the Dean Heritage Centre may have more.
https://maps.nls.uk/view/120756932

Lots of old photos of Whitecroft here,
https://www.sungreen.co.uk/Lydney/_LydneyPage3.htm

I appreciate none of this answers your specific questions about your house, but hopefully it's of interest and may lead to more.

An exact location of your house would be necessary to be able to help at all. Can you identify it on a modern map? Also, why do you think it was built in 1850? Do you have some information already?

I would suggest going to Geoff Gwatkin's site at http://geoffgwatkinmaps.co.uk and buying a map from him that covers the appropriate area (you might have to ask him which is the correct one). The maps come with a list of land owners and would be a good place to start researching the house history. The maps date mostly from the 1840s though so, if the house was built in 1850 it might not show it. But it might still show who owned the land it was built on even if the house wasn't there.

--
Peter

Jeff

Thank you for your detailed response. We unfortunately possess very little information about the previous occupants or their professions.

In case anyone knows anymore, I have included it's location on google maps, where it is listed as 8 Park Hill (possible old address ?)

Location
https://goo.gl/maps/GHwWGPyYg152

1903 OS
https://imgur.com/a/wyELaqS

A couple of additional points on the house.

-We should have an old boundary stone in our garden according to the old OS map, however have yet to find it.

-Our garden backs onto the Lyd and we have a very old well dug into the the garden, possible was once communal?

-The house its self have been extended many times, but is largely made of Pennant Stone, with solid oak joists in the roof.

-The previous owner painted a "Green Man" on the side of our house referenced in the article https://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/news/gloucester-news/mark-harper-accused-being-wr...

Wow Peter,
that looks like a great website, not seen that before, thanks for bringing it to my attention !
atb Jeff.

Hi again,
thanks for the extra detail about the house location, looks like I should have checked to see exactly what you knew before replying, clearly you've already done a fair bit of research which is great to see.

Without a solid starting point eg the names of previous owners (eg from Deeds, or maybe Wills), it's difficult to be sure which house on the old Census is yours.
General browsing of the old census' will hopefully help you find out when the house numbering system was introduced in your road, sadly at this moment I can't search them in that way myself.

I'm sure you know that red Pennant sandstone is very common in FoD buildings, as it could be quarried locally especially in the Bicslade valley.

I see the Green Man article names a previous owner of your house, presumably he doesn't have any more historical info to offer ?
That article mentions Owen Adams, who I know a little via online local history groups. I believe he knows a fair but about Whitecroft area history, do you know him ?.

J

1850 was the age given by the building survey and the building appears on maps dating back to 1870 available on https://www.old-maps.co.uk/#/Map/361503/206500/12/100203

modern map location - https://goo.gl/maps/SeJFwySCNPL2

Thanks for your reply the previous owner was only here for 3 years, but we'll start are research their.

The house is a blond/buff Pennant which seems common on the spoil heaps around Whitecroft.

The property is shown on this map from the Lloyd George Survey of 1909. I’m assuming it’s the one with B.S. marked in the garden. Unfortunately the hereditament number is difficult to read. It is certainly 229? and possibly 2294.

https://www.glos1909survey.org.uk/maps/Box39/D2428-3-39-14.jpg

These are the properties in the area.

https://www.glos1909survey.org.uk/code/list.php?ltype=addr&saddr=Whitecroft&pID=0

Number 2294

GA/D2428/1/80/2 - Hereditament Number 2294

Place: West Dean
Income tax parish: West Dean
Occupied by:

Hook, Albert (M)

People holding property:

Brinslow, Amy, St John's Row, Ruspidge (F) (owner)

Property

Description: house & garden
Address: Whitecroft

Poor Rate
Number Size Gross Value Rateable Value
2226 10 perches £4 15s. £3 10s.

From GR 1911 Census, Whitecroft, Nr. Lydney, Glos

Albert HOOK, Head, 28, Married, Coal Miner Hewer, born Whitecroft, Glos.
Amy Elizabeth, Wife, 29, Whitecroft, Glos.
William Albert, Son, 5, Whitecroft, Glos.
Lily Elizabeth, Daur, 3, Whitecroft, Glos.

The problems are that the size of the plot looks rather smaller than I would have expected and, of course, that I may have read the number wrongly.

The property is shown on this map from the Lloyd George Survey of 1909. I’m assuming it’s the one with B.S. marked in the garden. Unfortunately the hereditament number is difficult to read. It is certainly 229? and possibly 2294.

Good work Mike.
As you say very hard indeed to read the full number, I can't make-out any hint of the last digit !.
But yes I think it's quite likely to be 2294 on the basis:

2295 appears to be the much smaller property on the corner plot next door along the road.

2296 is the neighbouring long plot to the south, with I think 2297? and definitely 2298 below that.

The small square building # midway along our northern boundary is virtually unreadable - logic tells me it should be 229? but to me it looks more like 228?,maybe 2286 or 2288 ?? - which really throws a spanner in my thinking !.

The larger plot to the north of ours def appears to be 2291.

However, I cannot see 2293 ?? And try as I might, the last digit of the small square property # doesn't look like a 3 to me... ?

So yes Yertiz could well be 2294, but as you say it's not certain.
(I seem to have spent most of my life trying to read the awkward/worn edges of maps... - living "life on the edge", haha)

Hope this helps ?!?.
J

Had a look at the 1939 Register on Ancestry

Glos
West Dean Rd
ODYC

Total of 24 pages which more of less start at Council Villas - quite a number of Council Villas at ParkHill, Whitecroft.... - not many houses listed.

The house name Yer Tiz - isn't listed - and don't know what Yer Tiz is next to??

Been trying to trace this through burial records etc on Forest of Dean record

Elton MORSE was buried 7 December 1940 - of Parkhill

and can see him on the 1939 Register

Some house names listed as Oakleigh, Oakdean etc -

Can see who lived there from 2003-2009 (Electoral Register on Ancestry)

So it was Yer Tiz, at this time.

Can't help with the history but that's a lovely house you've bought.
We viewed it twice but finally decided against it due to the upstairs layout
The gardens are spectacular especially with the river at the bottom.
We wondered if it may have possibly been two cottages at one stage due to the two back doors close together?

Yes ! It's a bit mess upstairs, we've already put a proper bathroom in and and knocked a new door in upstairs to split the bedrooms, so its now a proper 3 bed.

Brilliant work chaps, thanks for all your help.

We recently unearthed the Boundary stone (completely buried). It is number 37 (correct to the stone listed by the forestry commission at this OS location)

This was listed as been the land of William Morse when the stone was put it (according to the Forestry commission)

The previous owner was Andrew Robert Hiscox (from 2014-2018)
Before that it was a Mrs and Mr Ball. (not sure for how long)

Just caught up with this on return from holiday. I hadn't heard of Yer Tiz, Whitecroft, but do know of Yer Tiz, Lydney, which is the name of a business run by Graham Sterry, a distant relative. www.yertizforestofdean.com Although plainly "Here it is" is a widely spoken phrase in Forestspeak, you never know if you ask Graham he might know of a connection to the Whitecroft house or some inspiration from it.

Hi Nathan,

We are the Mr and Mrs Ball that lived in Yer Tiz before Andy Hiscox. We knew the boundary stone was there somewhere so congratulations on finding it. I don’ know if Andy left all the old deeds and paperwork that we got from the previous owners some of it went quite a way back. We still live in Whitecroft, Pillowell Road , just the other side of the Miners Arms, if you would like to know what we know about the house then would be happy to help!

Brilliant, good to see you've stayed in the forest.

Unfortunately Andy left nothing in the house after leaving so we don't have any information. We've started to fully renovate the property and have begun to find a lot of history just from the construction and different periods of building/extension.

Any information you can provide would be much appreciated.