New Inn > Parrot > Queens Head; Waters Cross, Lydbrook (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Wednesday, February 22, 2017, 20:25 (2830 days ago) @ Jefff

Forgot to mention, Waters Cross is, not surprisingly, the site of an old ferry. The ever-reliable british History site says;

Waterscross, on the Wye at the foot of Vention Lane, was mentioned by that name from 1642 and may have been the site of an ancient river crossing, but its use is not recorded until 1852 when a ferry operated there. Later there was a ferry downstream, just above Lydbrook, to Courtfield, in Welsh Bicknor (Herefs., formerly Mon.), the seat of the Vaughan family and the site of a Roman Catholic chapel. Both ferries no longer operated in 1990.

And later,

Waterscross had the New Inn in Vention Lane by 1829. Known later as the King's (or Queen's) Head it was closed c. 1890.

Finally,

In 1820 E. J. Scott, a London solicitor, built a tramroad to link a colliery at Moorwood with the Wye at Waterscross. The line, which incorporated an inclined plane running down Vention Lane and crossing the Bishopswood tramroad, was opposed by the Severn & Wye company and was taken up c. 1823. At that time a Lydney firm traded at a wharf midway between Waterscross and Bishopswood, and in the mid 1830s the partnership of William Montague and Charles Church of Gloucester occupied four of the coal wharves at Bishopswood. By the late 1840s the only wharves in use above Lydbrook were those at Waterscross and midway between Waterscross and Bishopswood and few if any of the Ruardean men living outside Lydbrook and Bishopswood worked as bargemen or watermen. The Lydbrook-Bishopswood tramroad, the northern end of which was removed after the closure of the Bishopswood ironworks, ran as far as the Ross road in 1833. It carried little traffic and the track was taken up in 1874. The line's course to the road, winding to maintain a steady gradient, was still clearly visible in 1990.

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/glos/vol5/pp231-247

Also see this prior thread and associated photos re a Waterscross ferryman.
http://www.forest-of-dean.net/fodmembers/index.php?id=44973