Ruins in Cotmeadows, Lydbrook (General)

by Caron, Monday, July 08, 2019, 12:03 (1959 days ago) @ Jhoskins58

Hi Jhoskins58.
Thank you for your post. I would love to hear whether your brother and sister have memories of the ruined cottage on Cotmeadows, known as Whitehall Cottage (Not to be confused with the big Georgian house Whitehall, which still stands on the opposite hill which I suppose is part of Forge Hill) My grandmother Dorothy Florence Jones, was born at Whitehall Cottage on Cotmeadows in 1916. Life on that hillside was very exposed in winter. I know they had moved to a cottage at the Roundabouts by approx 1920. Sadly by then Dorothy’s mum, Annie Elizabeth Jones was badly affected by TB, and her father Henry Issac Jones was dying from ‘Miner’s Asthma’. By approx 1922-23 both parents died, leaving my grandmother and 4 other siblings orphaned. The children were split up. The boys were sent to family in Yorkshire (by local railway connections) where they joined the mining industry.. The girls stayed in the forest, but we’re separated. The youngest living with mother’s side, and my grandmother taken in by an elderly auntie on her father’s side. The two families had fallen out, so the sisters were not allowed to see each other. The auntie my grandmother lived with was Mary Ellen Gunter, and her Cottage was on Hangerberry but is sadly gone. I holiday in Lydbrook often, as I like to keep their lives remembered, and add to my knowledge of their past.