Old Photos of Lydbrook and district - Lydbrook, The Jovial Colliers 1895

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Image: Lydbrook Viaduct, the beginning of the end. - photos by local photographer Roger Walding

Old Photos of the Forest of Dean

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Old Photos of Lydbrook & District

Lydbrook, The Jovial Colliers 1895

Courtesy of :

W Smith, comentary Ken W Sollars

This postcard was dated 1895. The dress of the road gang suggests that they were not local men. The Steam Roller is certainly drawing much local interest. Alfred Jones name appears on the sign. The front of the pub now has bay windows. In 1895 beers and ciders were drawn "from the wood". The Jovials would have served men from Lydbrook Deep Navigation "Pit", probably railway workers and certainly men of the Lydbrook Chemical Works (closed 1919). The "Stewery" the local name for the chemical works was immediately to the left of the Jovials. The works produced wood distillation products i.e. charcoal, lampblack, naphtha, plumbago to name a few. The charcoal was ground so fine it was used to make biscuits for symptomatic relief of indigestion as well as for filtering media. The miners from the deep pit "Arthur and Edward" (or Waterloo) would call in for a drink at the end of the shift, or even on the way in!. Less then 200 yards from the Jovials on Church Hill stood the Crown and Sceptre Inn whilst 200 yards up the main road stood the Queens Head - 3 pubs within a stone's throw!. The Jovials had a skittle alley in the rear. During the second world war it was used as a .22 rifle range for the Home Guard. The Little Howbrook stream runs at the side of the inn, this would often get blocked and cause flooding of the inn. On the opposite side of the road in the middle 1930's a high retaining wall was built for the Recreation Ground and among commemorative stones which were laid was one by the Duke of Kent. The Duke was later sadly killed in an air crash