Wynols Hill House (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Monday, January 23, 2012, 14:48 (4691 days ago) @ unknown

Hi Roger, sorry you had no luck.
Must admit I'm confused, depending how you spell Matthews (one or two Ts) I can find 25 PRs for Williams in Newland alone, dating from the 1600s thro to the mid 1800s. It can help if you tick the "Soundex" box when searching, this will give both spellings in the same set of results (although it sometimes gives highly unlikely "similar" names as well).

Why are you specifically looking at Newland ?.
Do you know for a fact this was the only church/parish your ancestors were at. Please remember that in the very old days Newland was the main(only?) church hence parish for the western part of the area (aside from Monmouth), the church dates from the 1200s !, long before the Forest as we know it was barely inhabited at all as it was a "private" hunting domain for Royalty since the Norman invasion. Even today Newland is still a relatively small, exclusive, village; the famous Forest author Humprhey Phelps describes it as the "posh" part of Coleford etc, and reminds us all that in mnay ways it is "not and never really was part of the Forest".
("The Forest of Dean", H.Phelps, pub 1982)...this is not one of the Old Photos series but a "text" book and worth searching out.

When the Forest started growing with the Industrial Revolution towns such as Parkend and Coleford (aka Winnalls/Wynols Hill) particularly became far bigger so got their own Churches/parishes, hence my posts above refer to Coleford for example. Hence residents of Newland became considered (in local government terms) as residents of say Coleford around the late 1700s.

This site gives "the" history of Newland and is worth a read. It opens with
"Newland, a village situated on the east side of the river Wye 5.5 km. south-east of Monmouth, was the centre of a large parish with complex boundaries and settlements of differing character. Coleford, a market town from the late 17th century, became the principal centre of population, while Newland, a picturesque village grouped around a large church and churchyard, remained small and mainly residential."

From: 'Newland', A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 5: Bledisloe Hundred, St. Briavels Hundred, The Forest of Dean (1996), pp. 195-231.
URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=23260 Date accessed: 23 January 2012.

Wrt your researches, if you still get no luck searching then please feel free to ask for assistance here.