History

I popped in the Centenary Lounge at Stroud Station Before catching the train to Gloucester for Lydney: I was on the scent of the industrial Dean In 1926 and the Great Western Railway, And, therefore, studied the GWR map From 1923 up there on the wall, With more care than my usual perfunctory glance. I focussed on the area of the Dean Within a sort of railway quadrant: Ross to Monmouth to Chepstow to Grange Court to Ross – Not a huge area but once home to over 40 pits and 6,000 miners And home to over 30 railway stations, Here are the stations in alphabetical order: Awre Junc., Bilson Goods, Blaisdon Halt, Blakeney Goods, Bullo Cross Hlt., Bullo Docks, Bullo Pill Goods, Cinderford, Cinderford Goods, Coleford, Drybrook Halt, Drybrook Road, Longhope, Lydbrook Jc., Lydney Docks, Lydney Jnc., Lydney Tn., Milk Wall, Mitcheldean Road, Newnham, Parkend, Ruspidge Hlt. Goods, Speech House Rd., Staple Edge Halt, Steam Mills Cr. Halt, Symonds Yat, UpR. Lydbrook, Upper Soudley Halt, Walford Halt, Westbury on -Sev-Halt, Weston-under-Penyard, Whimsey Halt, Whitecroft. On I went to Lydney to the Dean Forest Railway (It’s signposted close by today’s railway station), Leaving the busy roads for a footpath To ‘Tramway Bridge’, built 1810, ‘For the Lydney and Lydbrook Canal Company’, ‘Later the Severn & Wye Railway’, ‘The tramroad was built to improve the export of Forest of Dean coal via Lydney Harbour and the River Severn’. So, you don’t have to venture far to be straight on the scent of coal in the Dean in 1926, Perhaps remembering the words of Ralph Anstis: ‘The effects of the rail...