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The town of Cinderford grew up in the 19th century to become the main settlement on the east side of the Forest. It took its name, recorded in 1258, (fn. 33) from the slag of early ironworks in the valley bottom at or near the place where the Littledean-Coleford road crossed the Cinderford (or Soudley) brook; a bridge had been built there by 1674. (fn. 34) Industrial development in that part of the Forest in the early 19th century, particularly the revival of the Cinderford ironworks in the late 1820s, (fn. 35) was accompanied by the building of many cottages and a substantial growth in population, (fn. 36) and in the 1840s the area near the bridge was chosen as the site for a school and a church. Later in the century the settlement grew into a small town with many of its shops, inns, and other meeting places to the north on or near the Littledean-Nailbridge road. The town continued to expand in the 20th century and extensive industrial development took place there after the Second World War.
In 1832 there were c. 51 dwellings east of the brook at Cinderford bridge, in the area then called Lower Cinderford. (fn. 37) Most were south of the road (St. White's Road) on Ruspidge Meend, which belonged to the Abbots wood estate (fn. 38) and where Edward Protheroe built cottages, including several terraces, for miners in his employment. (fn. 39) In 1841 the settlement at the bridge included a chapel and two beerhouses. (fn. 40) On the hillside to the north-east, known as Cinderford Tump, the White Hart inn had opened by 1834 (fn. 41) and, to the west, a school was built by Edward Protheroe in 1840 and the church of St. John the Evangelist was opened in 1844. (fn. 42) At the ironworks, which stood 800 m. north of Cinderford bridge, cottages were built at the bottom of the later Victoria Street to the south-east. In 1832 the area, known as Upper Cinderford, included c. 38 houses, (fn. 43) mostly terraced cottages provided by the ironworks' owners, and a beerhouse called the Forge Hammer. (fn. 44) By the mid 19th century a few houses had been built further north on Bilson (formerly Cartway) green, (fn. 45) which later became the main industrial area of Cinderford. One house, next to Bilson colliery, was occupied by Edward Protheroe's agent Aaron Goold in 1831, when the fences around its enclosure were destroyed by rioters. (fn. 46) Known later as Bilson House, it was demolished after 1973, during redevelopment of the area. (fn. 47)
In the later 19th century Cinderford's development centred on the hillside east of Bilson in the area known at that time as Woodside, (fn. 48) Littledean Woodside, or Bilson Woodside. (fn. 49) Building had begun there before 1782, when eight cottages were standing on encroachments on the edge of the royal demesne in the area of the later Heywood Road. (fn. 50) At the same time cottages were built on extraparochial land to the east in Dockham Road (formerly Hinder's Lane) and higher up on Littledean hill, (fn. 51) and in 1832 there were c. 86 cottages at and above Woodside. (fn. 52) The settlement of Littledean Hill, on a ridge overlooking Littledean to the east, also included cottages on land belonging to Littledean parish and Lea Bailey tithing. (fn. 53) The Royal Forester inn near the Forest keeper's lodge called Latimer Lodge was recorded from 1838 (fn. 54) and, further south, a chapel was built in 1824 (fn. 55) and an inn called the Royal Oak had opened by 1838. (fn. 56) The oldest dwelling on the hill was possibly a farmhouse standing at the east end of Dockham Road in 1797, in the area known later as Dockham and within Flaxley parish. (fn. 57) To the south at St. White's there were one or two cottages on Crown land adjoining the Littledean-Coleford road by the late 1760s (fn. 58) and a public house had opened there, in the area called Mount Pleasant, by 1841. (fn. 59)
In the mid 19th century houses were built at Woodside on land adjoining the Littledean-Nailbridge road. The road, made in the late 1820s, (fn. 60) descended north-westwards from Mousell barn, near St. White's, along Belle Vue Road across Flaxley Meend, and along High Street within the Forest. (fn. 61) By the mid 1830s there was a cluster of cottages at the top of High Street by a tollgate west of the junction of Dockham Road with the new route (fn. 62) and a few cottages had been built on Mousell Lane, an old route over Flaxley Meend. (fn. 63) Several more cottages had been erected near the tollgate by the mid 1850s, (fn. 64) and much new building had taken place in that area by the late 1860s. On the north-east side of High Street the Swan hotel, at the bottom of Dockham Road, was built as a posting house in 1867 on the site of an earlier inn (fn. 65) and the Lion (formerly the Dolphin) inn, lower down, was built several years earlier. (fn. 66) In the late 1860s a town hall was built opposite the Lion on land formerly used for holding fairs. (fn. 67) Opened in 1869, (fn. 68) the hall had a large room on the first floor for concerts, meetings, and lectures and rooms on the ground floor for the sale of market produce and for offices. (fn. 69) In 1885 the lower floor accommodated a furniture shop (fn. 70) and later markets were held next to the Lion. (fn. 71) Lower down High Street empty spaces were filled and by the late 1870s new building had extended settlement northwest to the junction with Valley (formerly Upper Bilson) Road, to which point the tollgate had been moved. In the area south of the top end of High Street much of Market Street, which ran south from the town hall, and the northern ends of Commercial Street and Victoria (formerly Station) Street, into which Market Street divided, were built up between the mid 1850s and the late 1870s. (fn. 72) In 1877 a police station was built west of the town hall by the road to Bilson (later Station Street). (fn. 73) The area around the town hall became Cinderford's main shopping area.
An important factor in the development of the town centre was new building in Flaxley Meend, part of the Flaxley Abbey estate, to the southeast. (fn. 74) Wesley, a large chapel at the bottom of Belle Vue Road, was built in 1849 (fn. 75) by Aaron Goold, who a few years later built St. Annals (formerly Belle Vue House) to the south-east as his residence. (fn. 76) Both buildings were set originally in wooded grounds and gardens. (fn. 77) The house became an institute in the early 20th century (fn. 78) and was used as offices by East Dean and United Parishes rural district council and its successors from 1929 until 1991. (fn. 79) Two cottages north-west of the chapel were converted c. 1880 by the industrialist Jacob Chivers as his residence, which became a manse in 1912 and was demolished in 1990. (fn. 80) The northern end of Woodside Street, running south from the junction of Belle Vue Road and Dockham Road, had been formed by 1859, when building was under way on its west side, and the area to the south, extending to Mousell Lane and bounded on the north-east by Belle Vue Road, was laid out for housing by a land society. (fn. 81) Building in the new streets, based on the triangle formed by Woodside Street, Abbey Street, and Flaxley Street, was piecemeal and continued in the mid 1870s (fn. 82) when the area was known as New Town. (fn. 83) To the north the east side of Woodside Street and the south-west side of Belle Vue Road were filled with houses later in the century. (fn. 84) The number of houses in Flaxley Meend, where the population grew by over 800 in the 1860s, (fn. 85) increased from 14 in 1851 to 234 in 1891. (fn. 86)
Elsewhere in Cinderford building continued in a haphazard fashion after 1840 and was mainly confined to scattered encroachments made before 1834. (fn. 87) At Bilson industrial development included gasworks erected in 1860, (fn. 88) and a large school was built north of the road to the town centre (later Station Street) in 1877. (fn. 89) To the north at Upper Bilson, at the north-west end of the town, where there were eight cottages including a beerhouse in 1841, (fn. 90) most houses were built after 1856. (fn. 91) On the east'side of the town Ladywell Manor (formerly St. Annal's Lodge), north of Dockham Road, was probably built by Aaron Goold. (fn. 92) In the later 19th century Cinderford's population more than trebled. In the area north of St. White's Road including Bilson, Upper Bilson, Flaxley Meend, and Littledean Hill it rose from 1,730 to 5,920 and the number of houses increased from 344 to 1,184 between 1851 and 1891. (fn. 93)
The development of the west side of the town was greatly influenced by the construction in the late 1890s of Valley Road, which followed the line of an abandoned tramroad north from Cinderford bridge and crossed the site of the Cinderford ironworks. (fn. 94) Two ranges, the only buildings of the ironworks to survive, were converted as terraced cottages. (fn. 95) In 1897 and 1898 the Crown improved two routes leading down to the new road, one westwards from High Street to the Bilson gasworks by way of Wesley Road and part of Station Street and the other south-westwards along Victoria Street. (fn. 96) At the bottom of Station Street the terminus of a new stretch of railway was opened on the north side and a hotel was built opposite it in 1900. (fn. 97) Piecemeal development continued on all sides of Cinderford in the early 20th century and on the Double View estate at the top of Belle Vue Road, south of Littledean Hill, it had begun by 1896. (fn. 98) In 1924 East Dean and United Parishes rural district council built 10 houses in Church Road, the continuation southwards of Commercial Street to St. White's Road. Council houses were built later in Victoria Street and on the site of Mousell barn at the top of Belle Vue Road, and the demolition of older dwellings deemed uninhabitable had begun by 1937, when an estate of 46 council houses was completed north of St. White's Road. (fn. 99) After the Second World War two large council estates grew up on the north side of the town. The Hilldene estate, in the Heywood Road area north-east of the town centre, was started in 1948. The first houses on the Denecroft estate, also begun in 1948, were at Upper Bilson and by the 1980s the estate had spread south-westwards to fill much of the area, including former railway land, bounded by Station Street and Valley Road. Council houses and bungalows were also built in the Victoria Street area in the 1960s. (fn. 1) After 1945 many small bungalows were built privately in Cinderford, some in place of older stone cottages, and from the 1960s a number of private housing estates were also built. (fn. 2) By 1992, as a result of infilling, the town's housing estates stretched as far as Littledean Hill on the east and St. White's Road on the south-east. The west side of the town remained its principal industrial area, although a large engineering factory dating from the late 1940s (fn. 3) at the bottom of Station Street was disused in 1992. From the late 1960s there was considerable redevelopment around the north end of Valley Road with the laying out of new industrial estates and roads and the building of new factories. (fn. 4) Further south some houses were built east of Valley Road in the 1980s.
Alterations to the town centre in the 20th century included the removal before the First World War of a building at the centre of the area known later as the Triangle, on the east side of Market Street near the entrance to Station Street. (fn. 5) A memorial to townsmen killed during the war was unveiled there in 1923. (fn. 6) In an extensive redevelopment in the late 1950s and early 1960s to widen the streets and form a larger open space in the centre, the buildings on the south-west side of High Street, down to and including the town hall, and on the east side of the north end of Market Street were demolished. (fn. 7) South-east of the new centre a row of shops was built in High Street in 1965. (fn. 8) The west end of Dockham Road was remodelled later to accommodate a bus station and was further redeveloped c. 1990 when a health centre and a supermarket were built on the north side. (fn. 9)
From: 'Forest of Dean: Settlement', A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 5: Bledisloe Hundred, St. Briavels Hundred, The Forest of Dean (1996), pp. 300-25. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=23266. Date accessed: 26 November 2006. |
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