Forest of Dean FHT Forum - Ruins in Cotmeadows, Lydbrook

Ruins in Cotmeadows, Lydbrook (reply)

Jefff — Wed, 10 Jul 2019 02:18:17 +0000

Hard and very sad times indeed !

I know even less about TB than I do about the hills around Lydbrook, so not a lot haha, but I do know my Dad was born nr Lydbrook in Joys Green and was asthmatic as a child, I wonder if this was related to the damp you mention. As a result his mum wouldn't allow him to go down the pit as his dad and uncles etc all did. His dad died fairly young with the usual miner's breathing problems. Unfortunately for Dad his first wife died from TB, aged just 23, she was from Longhope.

Re Hangerberry or Ankerbury, Anchorberry etc, this has been mentioned a few times on the forum, so I've just searched the forum hoping for an explanation as to the origins of the name. Sadly I've found none, apart from the usual references to the difficulties the educated folk like ministers, census officials and mapmakers would have had trying to understand and transcribe the Forest dialect. Interestly, with reference to your mentioning how damp the area was, my general internet search for "ankerberry" found an old book entitled "Our native ferns, or, A history of the British species and their varieties", by Edward Joseph Lowe, 1825-1900. The book states

Glandulosa, Moore — First discovered in a boggy portion of Ankerbury Hill, near Lydbrook, in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, and subsequently near Windermere...

Anyway, thanks for your insight into the area, and good luck with your search for those elusive photos.
J

Ruins in Cotmeadows, Lydbrook (reply)

probinson — Tue, 09 Jul 2019 20:08:16 +0000

Don't blame Jeff, it was me who suggested it. But looking at it again, I see what you mean about the the hill being in the way. Continue looking I guess...

Ruins in Cotmeadows, Lydbrook (reply)

Caron — Tue, 09 Jul 2019 18:33:07 +0000

Oo! That’s interesting Peter. Thanks for that.
The cottage/s were indeed, without water supply or fuel. Wood was collected for the stove (Hare’s Grove was probably quite handy), and water was collected from a well source either at the exit gate to Proberts Lane, or from the main road below ( my grandmother as a child would carry two wooden buckets with a yoke across her shoulders, from being very young). Life on this hillside was very bleak for the family, who had to work very hard. It was also damp, which is why my great grandmother died at 35 of TB, leaving 3x sons and 3x daughters, the youngest being only 2yrs old. And why their father died within 6 months, from Miners Asthma.
TB continued to wipe out a lot of Lydbrook people until the 1950’s. I think at the time, Lydbrook had the highest incidence of TB in the whole country. I wonder whether people began to become afraid of living so remotely, when winters especially must have been such a struggle.

Ruins in Cotmeadows, Lydbrook (reply)

Caron — Tue, 09 Jul 2019 18:19:36 +0000

Thanks for your help Jeff. I’ve studied the colour photo against some others of mine, and unfortunately this is the wrong place for Whitehall Cottage, which would be hidden just around the sweep of the hill - above where the Baptist Church sits at the start of Lower Lydbrook. The cottages high on the hill in this picture would have been part of Hangerberry hill ( pronounced Ankerberry by the locals, maybe after anchor, not sure). My grandmother lived on Hangerberry hill with an elderly aunt (known as granny Gunter by far and wide) after she and her siblings were orphaned. If I could work out how to add a photo, Id show the fuzzy pics Ive got, which almost give some glimpse of the shape of the cottage/s. My grandmother always said 2x cottages, with a wash house that joined the two & was shared by both families.

Ruins in Cotmeadows, Lydbrook (reply)

probinson — Tue, 09 Jul 2019 18:00:48 +0000

There's a William and Louisa Bibey listed as living at Whitehall Cottage, Lydbrook, in the 1918 register of electors.

Ruins in Cotmeadows, Lydbrook (reply)

probinson — Tue, 09 Jul 2019 17:30:19 +0000

Looking at old OS maps (old-maps.co.uk), the cottage seems to disappear in the sixties. There's some inconsistency because a 1960 map doesn't show it but a 1966 map does. But it definitely seems to be gone by the seventies.

My guess is it didn't have any mains services and installing them would have been difficult and expensive due to its position. In the mid 20th Century people wanted more mod cons and so it was probably considered uninhabitable and became derelict. It was probably knocked down by the land owner and the stone used for some other project. Just my guess but I know of a couple of other properties that disappeared in the same period for much the same reasons.

Ruins in Cotmeadows, Lydbrook (reply)

Caron — Tue, 09 Jul 2019 08:23:40 +0000

Really helpful explanation Jeff. Thank you so much

Ruins in Cotmeadows, Lydbrook (reply)

probinson — Tue, 09 Jul 2019 06:05:04 +0000

Thanks Jeff. I tend to agree on date.

I also checked the Sungreen site but couldn't find the image. Googling 'postcard upper Lydbrook looking west' found another example but no better.

Ruins in Cotmeadows, Lydbrook (reply)

Jefff — Mon, 08 Jul 2019 23:59:12 +0000

Hi Caron,
Peter referred to this link, as per my earlier post.
If you open the link in a new tab or window, it contains a few photos of the general Lydbrook area. The very first photo at top of the page is the colour one. If you click on it, it enlarges to show considerable detail and a white cottage at the top of the far hillside. The station is Upper Lydbrook on the Sevrn & Wye line, you can see a passenger train steaming through bound for Lydney - the station closed to passenger traffic in 1929, looking at the loco and carriages and comparing to other photos, I think this photo dates from about 1910.

atb J.

https://thesingingoak.com/2018/06/30/james-william-george/

ps I've just noticed that colour pic has the Sungreen logo stamped on it. However I don't seem to be able to find it on the Sungreen site, but I still recommend you throughly browse the pics on this page to see if they are relevant to your search (I don't know the area very well, sorry).
https://www.sungreen.co.uk/Lydbrook/_LydbrookPhotos.htm

Ruins in Cotmeadows, Lydbrook (reply)

Caron — Mon, 08 Jul 2019 21:18:30 +0000

I’m not understanding what you’re referring to Peter, when you say” the last link you showed Jeff has a coloured picture”. I can’t remember showing Jeff a link to a coloured picture, but seeing as I’m a woman of a forgetful age that’s not beyond all possibility - haha.
Can you let me know what the colour picture is please?

Ruins in Cotmeadows, Lydbrook (reply)

probinson — Mon, 08 Jul 2019 18:58:20 +0000

In the picture I was referring to, it is standing. No date though.

Ruins in Cotmeadows, Lydbrook (reply)

Caron — Mon, 08 Jul 2019 11:08:19 +0000

Thank you.
Yes, I have sat at the footings of this old cottage on Cotmeadows many times with my family, on visits back to Lydbrook. But I’ve never been able to find a photo of Whitehall Cottage when it was standing, and I wonder what year it stopped being occupied-and why?

Ruins in Cotmeadows, Lydbrook (reply)

Caron — Mon, 08 Jul 2019 11:04:09 +0000

Thanks Jeff. I’ll study those

Ruins in Cotmeadows, Lydbrook (reply)

Caron — Mon, 08 Jul 2019 11:03:09 +0000

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.

Ruins in Cotmeadows, Lydbrook (reply)

probinson — Mon, 08 Jul 2019 06:25:33 +0000

That last link you gave Jeff has a colour picture which, if my map reading skills haven't failed me, shows Whitehall Cottage high up on the hill.

Ruins in Cotmeadows, Lydbrook (reply)

Jefff — Sun, 07 Jul 2019 19:25:05 +0000

Some great old photos of Bell Hill here, probably best to open links in a new window or tab.
https://forest-of-dean.net/gallery/lydbrook_2/pages/page_48.html

https://www.sungreen.co.uk/Lydbrook/BellHillLydbrook.htm

If you click on the photos on this page they will enlarge to show great detail.
https://thesingingoak.com/2018/06/30/james-william-george/

Hope of interest, J.

Ruins in Cotmeadows, Lydbrook (reply)

Jhoskins58 — Sun, 07 Jul 2019 18:51:28 +0000

Hello, l hope you don,t mind replying to your message but as you mentioned bell hill cottage, l remember my Dad telling me l was born on Bellhill and moved to Joys Green when l was a small baby my brother was born on Joys Green a year and three months after me. I was born 1958 l used to look at the ruins from the cliffs on Joys Green when l was a child l don,t remember much but l could ask my older sister and brother they might have more information which l will try and find and get back to you if this is any help.

Ruins in Cotmeadows, Lydbrook (reply)

Caron — Mon, 30 May 2016 07:20:33 +0000

Lovely old map Mike. Thank you! I'll study it. What I'm really looking for, is how long the cottage stood for? Whether anyone has found other people from their own family living there at other times? A photo of the cottage is my ultimate aim, but that might be more than I could wish for. Thanks for posting!

Ruins in Cotmeadows, Lydbrook (reply)

Caron — Mon, 30 May 2016 07:15:42 +0000

Thanks Jeff. Yes, I'm just trying to expand on my knowledge obtained from these previous posts in 2012. I do visit the ruin when I'm in Lydbrook, but would love to find out how long the cottage stood for? Who lived there at other times? Was it pulled down, as so many cottages were in Lydbrook, because there hadn't been permission to build. I do have a photo of Bell Hill from 1900's, which teasingly shows a small fuzzy white dot of a cottage in the distance, in the right area of Cotmeadows . But sadly, that's the nearest I've come to seeing what the cottage would have looked like. Thanks for posting Jeff!

Ruins in Cotmeadows, Lydbrook (reply)

Jefff — Sun, 29 May 2016 21:46:20 +0000

This thread from 2012 appears to answer the same question.

http://forum.forest-of-dean.net/index.php?mode=thread&id=38155