Old Photos of Lydbrook and district - Lydbrook, from Church Hill

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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, from Church Hill - looking West c 1935

Courtesy of :

W Smith, commentary by Ken W Sollars

Looking west from the railway line toward Hangerberry Hill. The group of houses centre hide the Hangerberry Road (or New Road). The line of houses centre was known as Merthyr Terrace. On the lower end are the houses and workshop of E. J. Flewelling & Sons - who built all the brick houses in Lydbrook up until world war II. He was the first builder to build with cavity walls and was much ridiculed by the old men who insisted that the houses would fall down before the roof was put on!. These men were more accustomed to cottages with solid walls 2 feet thick. The single cottage below E.J, Flewelling's house and workshop was the first police station in Lydbrook. A later police station was built seventy yards down the hill on the opposite side of the road. Another modern police station was built opposite the Anglican church near the dismantled railway station. To the left middle can be seen the council school built 1908. The scattered cottages on the hillside are typical of the time of squatting and predate any planning regulations. The hillside was also quarried for yellow and red building sand. At least four iron mines are known. Hangerberry was rich in natural resources.