Brambledean, Broadoak (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Friday, April 12, 2013, 21:01 (4244 days ago) @ Jayne davey

Hi Jayne and welcome to the forum !

Please can you give more info about the property to help us "place" it, eg description, precise location, and particularly approximate age, thanks. Search engines find the following estate agents info but sadly without any photos, so not too helpfull so far. As a complete guess where it's described as "end of terrace" I wonder if it's cottages for local farm or even river workers ?. Do you have Ancestry access, sometimes entering specific house names gives results particularly off the 1911 Census.
Whatever you find out about the house I'm sure it's a delightful and substantial one with healthy fresh air and peacefull space inside and out (so unlike my West London midterrace !). I'd certainly swop you my view for yours across the river, altho' sadly they'll no longer like this one !
http://www.antiqueprints.com/proddetail.php?prod=e8007

I hope your plans go well and you enjoy living there. By then you'll have the Deeds of course, they may yield some history.

http://www.zoopla.co.uk/property/brambledean/broadoak/newnham/gl14-1jb/9686615

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

In case you don't know a general and perhaps definitive history of Broadoak is in the British History website under Westbury, as follows. (No specific mention of Brambledean, but still interesting). Among various mentions of Broadoak are;

"Broadoak, a hamlet on the Severn in the south part of Elton tithing, owed its growth to the river trade, of which the remains of a quay and a derelict wooden barge were the only visible reminder in 1969. The first record found of a house there was in 1639, although the settlement probably existed earlier. Broadoak consists mainly of 18th- and early-19th-century brick cottages standing between the main road and the river; one is dated 1763 and another 1799. Broadoak House, the most substantial house there, was built c. 1800. It is of brick with stone quoins, dentil cornice, and a pedimented doorcase; the interior retains decorative plaster ceilings and carved fireplaces. A brick and stone building in the garden was being used as a private school in 1846. The Broadoak Inn, at a house at the east end of the hamlet, was open by 1760 and until the early 20th century. Another inn, the 'White Hart' recorded from 1783, remained open in 1969."
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=15765&strquery=broadoak

"Broadoak was a small centre of commerce and ship-building. Five sailors and two shipwrights listed under Elton in 1608 probably lived there, and a mariner of Broadoak was mentioned in 1702. Sloops and barges of 40-70 tons, and in 1801 a West Indiaman of 263 tons, were among ships built at the hamlet during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, some of them by Thomas Powell (d. 1785) and his son Thomas (d. 1795). The Boughton family were merchants at Broadoak during the second half of the 18th century: John Boughton was dealing in cider in 1755, and at his death in 1767 he left cider-making equipment at Hawkins Pill, just over the boundary with Newnham, and a brig to his son Joseph (d. 1782), who became prominent in the bark and cider trade; two other members of the family owned a brig trading with London in 1786. Three pilots and a sloop-owner were among the hamlet's residents in 1856. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries large quantities of stone for use on the roads of the parish were brought up river and unloaded at Broadoak."
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=15767&strquery=broadoak

For an insight into the life of the Boughtons of Broadoak you may want to lookup Issue 19 of the FoD LHS magazine "New Regard", Cinderford Library for example has some back issues.
http://79.170.40.163/forestofdeanhistory.org.uk/LHSnr19sample.htm

I see the poet FW Harvey lived there for a while in the 1920's, perhaps at Brambledean, before moving into the inner Forest ?
http://www.fwharveysociety.co.uk/Will%20Harvey%20and%20Yorkley.htm