William RAYER & Family (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Saturday, July 16, 2011, 16:52 (4883 days ago) @ Rayer

Hi Jan,
Winchcombe isn't part of the Forest of Dean although it is in Gloucestershire but situated northeast of Gloucester & even Cheltenham so rather outside the scope of this website.

http://www.winchcombe.co.uk/about/local-history

It's an ancient Cotswolds town which I believe owes a lot of its growth in more recent times to that area's woollen industry. Anyone trading wool from there towards say the seaports of Bristol or into the Forest & South Wales via Lydney would undoubtedly have visited the enroute town of Berkeley, historically an important town with castle etc.

Berkeley is situated east of the Forest just a mile or so across the Severn immediately opposite Lydney, this flatter area called the Vale is far less populated than the Forest side with no modern industry to speak of, being largely agricultural based. I have agricultural working ancestors in Taynton nr Longhope just within the northern Forest boundary, some of those originate from Berkeley presumably due to this ag-lab similarity. Generally though the Berkeley side of the river has remained largely unchanged since long before and after the Industrial Revolution that so influenced the Forest's sharp population growth. I think this explains why there has been so much "transfer" of families across the River into the Forest in the last few hundred years, especially thro the port of Sharpness, very near Berkeley and the highest navigable point of the Severn for larger ships in those more recent times, and also Frampton upstream across to Awre & Newnham.

This 1904 Ordance Survey map shows this area well, if you look at the bottom lefthand corner you can zoom into it, it's a fantastic site for anyone like myself with an interest in old maps. That said, even a basic road atlas is in my opinion essential when researching family history, to get a good grasp of the area your ancestors lived in. I thought I knew the FoD area pretty well, but in fact I've learnt so much more since I started researching these last few months, especially the area north towards Herefordshire, what nowadays seem insignifcant little villages were important Parish centres only a century or two ago.

http://visionofbritain.org.uk/cgi-bin/iipsrv.fcgi?FIF=/maps/vips/os_medium_1904/1125_14...

Not forgetting of course this (FoD FH) site's own superb FoD maps kindly provided by Slowhands, I think people forget theres so much more wonderful and relevant information available on this website than "just" the PRs & Forum.

http://www.forest-of-dean.net/joomla/the-forest-of-dean/maps-of-the-forest

Look at the "Forest East c1906" map, a good closeup of the Awre/Berkeley area. Note the railway bridge at Sharpness which would undoubtedly have helped make cross-Severn traffic a much more routine event. That said there were of course many ferry boats at say Newnham etc.