WOOLASTON
WOOLASTON is a parish of scattered hamlets lying
midway between Lydney and Chepstow. Roughly
rectangular in shape, it rises from the River Severn
to the high ground of Tidenham Chase. The
account printed here relates to the area that until
1882 formed the parish, comprising 3,303 a.
excluding river foreshore and tidal water. (fn. 1) The area
included Madgett, a detached piece of cultivated
land on Tidenham Chase, and a long, narrow neck of
land extending to the steep valley of the River Wye
opposite Tintern Abbey. In 1882 the detached
portion of the parish at Madgett, comprising
308 a., was transferred to Tidenham. (fn. 2) In 1935 the
strip of land between the River Wye and the road
from St. Briavels to Chepstow, containing 219 a.
and including a small part of the hamlet of Brockweir, was transferred to Hewelsfield, and 54 a.
of land north-east of the Cone brook were transferred to Alvington. At the same time the irregular
shape of the parish boundary with Tidenham south
of Ashwell Grange was straightened by the transfer
of 113 a. to Woolaston. (fn. 3) In Ashwell Grove a clearing
of 3 a. called Piccadilly formed a detached part of
Tidenham until 1882. (fn. 4)
The northern part of the parish near Brockweir
consisted of the riverside meadows between the River
Wye and the steep wooded scarp of Madgett Hill.
The promontory on which Ferry Farm stands was
called Yewtree Headland (Iwes Heafdan) in 956,
and yew trees were growing there in 1969. (fn. 5) The
northern boundary followed the brook at Brockweir
for almost a mile and then ran eastwards along the
600-ft. contour. The land, which was still heavily
wooded in 1969, falls steeply for 400 ft. with streams
flowing south-eastwards to the Severn. The parish
boundary follows the course of the northernmost
until its confluence with the Cone brook and thence,
with the exception of the meadow north of Mickla
Bridge and a small piece of land at Cone Pill the
boundary runs with the Cone to the Severn. The
Severn forms the southern boundary, the pills
along its bank being much silted and the bank
suffering erosion. (fn. 6) On the south-west the boundary
follows the stream that flows into Horse Pill from
the road from Gloucester to Chepstow, but north
of the road it takes an erratic course unrelated to
topographical features. It is likely that originally
the boundary ran along the Piccadilly brook from
its source, near which there occurs the place-name
Mereway Grove, to Wyvern Pond. A park belonging
to the lordship of Woolaston but in the fee of
Tidenham was given to Tintern Abbey by Walter de
Clare in 1131 (fn. 7) and the name Park Hill, first recorded
in 1661, (fn. 8) was still applied in 1969 to the hamlet
known also as Bowlash immediately north of
Mereway Grove. The park was presumably included
in the assart of 200 a. in Tidenham Chase, made by
Tintern Abbey by 1282, for that clearance can be
identified as Ashwell Grange, consisting probably
of all the land between the Piccadilly brook and the
post-1935 south boundary of the parish. (fn. 9) The
extraordinary course of the boundary before 1935
may be explained as a division of the assarted land
between Tidenham and Woolaston, for tithe
disputes over the park and assarts at Tidenham and
inclosure of arable at Ashwell occurred in the early
13th century and 1291 between Lire Abbey,
appropriators of Tidenham, and Tintern Abbey. (fn. 10)
The whole parish lay in 1273 within Tidenham Chase,
regarded as part of the Forest of Dean in the 13th
century. (fn. 11)
The ground above the 250-ft. contour in the
north part of the parish lies on the Carboniferous
Limestone with a small area of Millstone Grit
near the road from St. Briavels to Chepstow at
Little Meend. The rock lies close to the surface at
Madgett, which suffered from a shortage of water
before the main supply was piped to the fields c.
1955. (fn. 12) Between the hills and the Gloucester-Chepstow road the land, falling gently to 100 ft.,
is on the Old Red Sandstone, which also underlies
the small hamlet of Plusterwine south-east of the
road. The meadow land south-east of the road is
on the Keuper Marl. (fn. 13) There are numerous springs
and wells in the upper beds of the Old Red Sandstone, and Lydney R.D.C. provided a piped supply
to Netherend from one spring at Woolaston Common
before 1930. (fn. 14) Ashwell Grange and High Woolaston
Farm had a private supply from two of the springs in
1969. (fn. 15)
At Edge Farm, near High Woolaston, where there
was a field called Single Berrow (fn. 16) in 1683, a small
Iron Age camp has been identified, and there are
earthworks at High Woolaston Farm. (fn. 17) A large
Roman villa in a field called Chesters east of
Woolaston Grange was partly excavated between
1932 and 1935. Little more than the bath systems
of two periods were uncovered, but the villa was
apparently built in the first half of the 2nd century,
destroyed and rebuilt c. 320, remaining occupied
until the 5th century. During this occupation a
harbour in the near-by Lay Pill was apparently
much used and the villa is thought to have had a
lighthouse to guide vessels past the off-shore Guscar
Rocks. (fn. 18) A hoard of c. 250 Roman coins from c. 313
to c. 346 was discovered at an unidentified site in the
parish in 1887-8. (fn. 19)
The hamlet of Woolaston has always been small.
In 1086 five families were recorded there, (fn. 20) and
c. 1703 there were 10 families. (fn. 21) Apart from Woolaston Grange, where the remains of a medieval chapel
built by Tintern Abbey stand in the farmyard, and
the rectory built in 1814, the few houses on the
Gloucester-Chepstow road are of late-19th- or 20th-century date. At Gumstalls, where in 1969 there
stood a pair of early-19th-century cottages and a
house which was the National school from c. 1818
to 1862, (fn. 22) there was a house by 1476. (fn. 23) High Woolaston was regarded as a separate hamlet by c. 1703
when it contained 20 families. (fn. 24) Fragments of
medieval pottery have been discovered in the valley
south of High Woolaston Farm, (fn. 25) and the remains of
a building on the site were levelled c. 1960. Other
foundations have been found in orchards near the
farm, including those of a ruined cottage on the
north side of the road which it was proposed should
be pulled down in 1873. (fn. 26) North of the 16th- and
17th-century farm-house four cottages were converted into a single dwelling c. 1960, (fn. 27) and another
indication of the former size of the hamlet is that in
1769 there was a blacksmith's shop. (fn. 28)
Most of the older houses in the parish are in two
groups at Plusterwine and Brookend, within the
area of the medieval manor of 'Aluredston', which
comprised the eastern part of the parish. Its boundaries cannot be defined precisely but it extended to
the Cone brook and River Severn, and included the
port at Cone Pill. (fn. 29) Plusterwine Farm was certainly
part of the manor, although the suggestion that the
19th-century names of the homestead, Alnwick
Grange, (fn. 30) and its out-buildings, Atwood Grange, are
derived from Aluredston seems unlikely. (fn. 31) The
presence of woodland in 1086 suggests that Aluredston manor included Woolaston Common and
Woodside. (fn. 32) The latest reference to the place-name,
the first element of which is the personal name
Alfred, occurs c. 1750 when Platts House at Brookend was located at 'Alverston'. (fn. 33) There were 10
families at Aluredston in 1086, (fn. 34) and 12th-century
pottery has been found at Brookend. (fn. 35) There is a
medieval building and a moat at Plusterwine
House. (fn. 36) By c. 1703 there were 35 families in
Plusterwine hamlet. (fn. 37) Burnt House and the former
post office at Brookend are 17th-century houses with
steeply pitched gabled roofs. Tan House was built
in the late 17th century and Brookend House,
formerly the Woolaston Inn, bears the initials
'IMW 1713' on the gate-posts, which almost
certainly stand for James and Mary Woodroffe
(both d. 1728). (fn. 38) The other older houses at Plusterwine and Brookend date from the late 18th or early
19th century, although Possession House was
recorded in 1694. (fn. 39) In Plusterwine Lane and
Kerrin Lane four houses and bungalows have been
built since c. 1960.
The most populous part of the parish in 1969
was Netherend, where there are numerous stonebuilt 19th-century cottages, many of which have
been rendered or rough-cast, and altered internally,
in the mid 20th century. In 1815 there were 22 small
houses and cottages in the hamlet scattered along
the roads leading to Woolaston Common, and by
1842 there were 64. (fn. 40) About 50 houses were built at
Netherend between 1945 and 1958, (fn. 41) including
council houses erected by Lydney R.D.C. By 1969
73 council houses stood in two groups in Severn
View Road and near the Netherend Inn, and apart
from scattered new houses built privately since c.
1950 18 houses were in the course of construction
north of Burnt House. The primary school, Methodist chapel, all three village shops, and post office
were also in Netherend in 1969. A small group of
19th-century houses stands above the lane leading
to Cone Mill, of which the easternmost was enlarged by the manager of the former paper-mill
c. 1880. (fn. 42)
On the higher ground in the parish, much of
which was waste land before inclosure in 1815,
many stone cottages were built in the late 18th and
early 19th century at Woolaston Common,
Woolaston Woodside, and Park Hill. A few were
built on encroachments of the waste in the late
17th century, and by c. 1703 there were already 20
families living at Upperend, which comprised the
area about Woolaston Common. (fn. 43) The cottagers
found employment in the woods, quarries, and coal
mines of the Forest of Dean and Tidenham Chase,
but the isolation of the cottages led to their abandonment from c. 1900. In 1958 only seven out of 17
cottages at Park Hill were inhabited, but since then
four new houses have been built or rebuilt and many
of the older cottages have been modernized. (fn. 44)
At Brockweir only a small portion of the village
formerly lay in Woolaston parish, which included
Brockweir Farm, the Moravian church with
dwelling attached, and the hall and former school.
Brockweir Farm, which is L-shaped and built of
stone, appears originally to have consisted of a
rectangular two-storied structure of three bays,
dating from the late 16th or early 17th century.
The surviving front entrance indicates the position
of the former cross-passage. The only original
features visible are a stone fireplace at the west end
of the older range and a partly-blocked four-light
window with hollow-chamfered mullions in what
has become an internal wall. The west end of the
building was raised in height and extended northwards, probably in the early 19th century. In 1969
the stone slates which had covered the roof were
replaced by tiles.
The deep valley east of Brockweir is crossed by
Offa's Dyke, constructed between c. 784 and c. 796,
and here enlarged and used later as a mill-dam. The
dyke also forms the west boundary of the detached
portion of the parish at Madgett where the nature
of the strong bank and ditch suggests that it was
built to protect the Saxon vill of Madgett whose
lynchets run to the dyke. (fn. 45) No population at Madgett
was recorded in 1086. (fn. 46)
In the whole parish there were c. 120 communicants recorded in 1551, (fn. 47) and 250 in 1603. (fn. 48) The
population was more stable than the figures suggest,
for in 1563 there were 48 households, (fn. 49) in 1608 52
adult males, (fn. 50) in 1650 49 families, (fn. 51) and in 1672 55
persons who were assessed for hearth tax. (fn. 52) A
growth of population followed, for by c. 1703 there
were 85 families (fn. 53) and c. 1710 there were 96 houses
with 400 inhabitants. (fn. 54) There was a rapid growth
from 459 c. 1775 (fn. 55) to 613 in 1801, 884 in 1821, and
a peak figure of 1,110 in 1851, perhaps partly due
to the presence of railway navvies in the district
that year. The population declined steadily to
852 in 1891, when there were 29 uninhabited houses
in the parish, and with some fluctuations to 786
in 1961. (fn. 56)
The principal road through Woolaston runs from
Gloucester to Chepstow. It follows the course of
the Roman road from Gloucester to Caerleon for
much of its route, but south-west of Brookend the
Roman road is believed to have diverged northward
past Gumstalls and the church before rejoining the
modern road north-east of Stroat. (fn. 57) Part of the
diversion at Gumstalls was still a green lane in
1969, and may be the road from Brookend to the
church mentioned in 1545. (fn. 58) The course taken by the
modern main road has been in use at least since the
10th century, for the crossing of the Piccadilly
brook and the Black brook at Twyford was recorded
in 956. (fn. 59) That was the place from which Twyford
Hundred was named, but the name was corrupted
to Wyeford from the mid 13th century and to
Wyvern Pond from c. 1900. (fn. 60) Although there was a
bridge on the main road by 1769 a ford then remained on the side road to High Woolaston, (fn. 61)
and the pond was not finally filled until 1963 when
a petrol-station was built on the site. (fn. 62) The length
of the Gloucester-Chepstow road through the parish
was a turnpike road from 1757-8 to 1871, (fn. 63) but the
only major change in its course was made before
1769 when a more southerly route at Netherend was
abandoned. (fn. 64) The road from Wyvern Pond to
High Woolaston was called Mislin or Millin Lane in
the late 17th century, (fn. 65) and the lane from High
Woolaston to Stroat was still in use in 1782. (fn. 66) From
Lay Pill a medieval track called Packer's Way has
been traced by the Roman villa westwards towards
the Gloucester-Chepstow road, and a hollow way
runs from the church north-west to skirt Edge Farm
and climb towards Tidenham Chase. (fn. 67) Souters or
Showters Lane, recorded in the 17th and 18th
centuries, (fn. 68) was the name given to the road at
Netherend. One branch to Woolaston Woodside
was called Cormins Lane in 1694, and may have
continued as 'the old and usual way' to St. Briavels
mentioned in 1682. At Woolaston Common a lane,
which in 1969 survived as a green lane, ran from
Upperend to Hewelsfield in 1683, (fn. 69) the principal
road at the Common being known as Upperends
Street in 1761. (fn. 70) At Plusterwine lanes from Green
Pool to Wickets Bridge and Mickla Bridge across the
Cone brook were mentioned in 1680 and 1681
respectively. Mickla Bridge was only a footbridge
in 1681, but in 1969 it was a small stone bridge wide
enough to take vehicles.
In the west part of the parish a way from Brockweir to the chase gate in 1681 (fn. 71) was presumably the
same as 'the right road from Brockweir to Chepstow'
which passed over Madgetts Hill north-west of
Madgett Farm by the waste land called Madgetts
Green c. 1700. (fn. 72) It continued southwards by the
green lane from Beeches Farm, the road to Madgett
Farm used in 1969 being made in 1813. (fn. 73) There was
a way from Madgett to the ferry to Tintern in
1824, (fn. 74) and from the ferry to Brockweir in 1777. (fn. 75)
The latter was pitched with cobblestones near the
ferry in 1969, and is said to have been cobbled where
it crossed the riverside meadows at Brockweir. (fn. 76)
The ferry to Tintern was established by the abbey,
and in 1535, when the keeper was paid £4 a year, it
was believed to date from the foundation of the
abbey in 1131. (fn. 77) The ferryman in 1282, Henry le
Passur, was said to carry poachers out of the Forest
of Dean, (fn. 78) and the ferry was presumably used by
Bishop Richard de Swinfield when he travelled
from Woolaston to Tintern during his visitation of
Hereford diocese in 1289. (fn. 79) The ferry became unnecessary after the building of a bridge c. 1876 for
the mineral railway from the Tintern wire-works
to the Wye Valley line. The mineral line was closed
c. 1935 but the bridge was used for vehicular access
to Ferry Farm in 1969. (fn. 80) The stone farm-house is a
two-story building with small attics of early-19thcentury date. It was probably largely rebuilt after
1813 when it was becoming ruinous (fn. 81) but a diagonal
chimney shaft of earlier date has survived at the
south end.
The railway from Gloucester to South Wales,
which passes through the parish, was opened in
1851 (fn. 82) with a station at Woolaston approached from
Plusterwine. The station was used for the conveyance
of materials to and from Cone paper-mill in the late
19th century, but its distance from the village
limited its use by passengers. (fn. 83) It was closed in
1954 and was later demolished. The Wye Valley
branch line from Chepstow to Monmouth was
opened in 1876, crossing the river Wye half a mile
south of Brockweir by a bridge which was dismantled
after the closure of the line in 1964. (fn. 84)
Three brewers, one at Brockweir, were recorded
in 1476 and two unlicensed alehouses in 1660 and
1752. (fn. 85) In 1685 there was a house at Brookend called
the 'Worcester's Head', (fn. 86) which was presumably the
same as that called the 'Duke of Beaufort's Head'
in 1772. (fn. 87) It is a late-18th-century house, which for
much of the 19th century had a smithy adjoining it; (fn. 88)
it ceased to be an inn c. 1908. (fn. 89) From c. 1820 it was
usually called the 'Old Duke's Head' to distinguish
it from the 'Duke's Head' almost opposite on the
south side of the Gloucester-Chepstow road. (fn. 90) The
latter, called Brookend House in 1969, (fn. 91) was an inn
by 1800, owned by Edmund Woodroffe, (fn. 92) and was
called the 'Duke's Head' until 1842; (fn. 93) in 1856 it
was known as the 'Queen's Head', but from 1863
was called the Woolaston Inn. (fn. 94) It has been a
private house since 1961 when a new Woolaston Inn
was built on the north side of the road at Brookend. (fn. 95)
The Swan Inn is recorded from 1815, (fn. 96) and the
'Rising Sun' and Netherend Inn were beerhouses
before 1876. There were then two other beerhouses
in Netherend and Woolaston Common, one called
the 'Carpenter's Arms' probably dating from before
1863 and surviving until c. 1908. (fn. 97)
A Friendly Society was registered in 1834 and an
Independent Benevolent Society in 1844. (fn. 98) The
parish was given a cottage in 1908 for social functions, and in the same year clothing and blanket
clubs were established and a coal club was in
existence. (fn. 99) A Memorial Hall was built in 1958. (fn. 1)
A cricket club was mentioned in 1897. (fn. 2) The placename Plusterwine which occurs first c. 1661 as
'Plesterwinde', (fn. 3) is believed to be derived from
'plaistow', meaning 'a place for games', (fn. 4) and the
churchwardens reported a custom of 'roughing on
All Hallows Night' in 1576. (fn. 5)