Follow the links to other villages.

This first card is entitled Yorkley Forest of Dean but is mainly Pillowell.  I believe it is taken on ground opposite the coach shed looking up diagonally across Main Road towards Pillowell Chapel (top right below initial MJRB) which still has it's chimney.  The listing on Ebay suggested that the chapel is Yorkley Baptist Chapel, now a private dwelling, but this has less windows along the side.

  

This second card is looking up from the bottom of Pillowell down by the S bends.  Corner Road should be off to the right and  Main Road bends left in the centre.

 

This next card is of the Baptist Chapel which is located in Lower Yorkley, at the junction of Stag Hill and Beech Road.  It is now a private dwelling.  Note the difference to the chapel in the first card.

This photograph is of awful quality.  It is from a postcard blown up to 10x8.

It shows the crossing gates at Phipps Bottom, where Whitecroft and Pillowell meet.

Taken from the embankment below Wesley Road.  The railway is no longer there.  The embankment and crossing cottage still are.  The Swan will be in the centre, right hand side.  It may well be the house with the smoke rising behind it.

The little picture above is taken from near where the chip shop Whitecroft is now located. (See the Whitecroft village page for some modern pictures).  Left foreground is the Mill leat that served the mill on the right hand side.  Follow the road down and the white house with the open door facing the observer is the Miner's Arms.  The smokestack to the right in the centre ground belongs to the pin factory.  The hill in the far distance is known as the Kidnalls and by the looks of it the timber has been felled for the most part.

This view of the Princess Royal Mine, which was located between Whitecroft and Bream near Saunders Green, was probably taken in the 1930's.  The waste clay from the mine was used to make bricks, one of which is shown below.  It was taken from my own house during renovations, the house dates from 1910.  The bricks made with this clay are much harder than similar London Brick Company bricks of the same period.

I have two copies of this card, both damaged and faint so I have put both copies on the page.  There is an enlarged detail of the Whitecroft station area.

 Taken from the garden of the Royal Oak in Whitecroft the view is over the station towards Pillowell, Yorkley and Whitecroft.  The centre of the card shows (left to right) Pillowell Road snaking up the hill, the area around the station and then the pin works. The methodist chapel in Whitecroft can just be made out in the centre of the picture.  Pillowell and Yorkley sprawl over the hill behind.

This is the detail from the station.  The roof of the Miners Arms can just be seen.

Bream is probably the biggest village in Gloucestershire and I can well believe.

This first view is of the Maypole crossroads where the village main road meets the Coleford to Lydney road.

This view is just along to the left and in the background can be seen the parish church.

This view is of the old village school and the school house.  The old school is now the West Dean Community centre and Parish Council office, the school house is a branch library.  The tree under which the photographer stood, was where unemployed miners used to gather and wait for a signal from the mine that there was work.  I believe that this was called the Hard-up tree.  It was cut down by the Forestry Commission sometime back and in 2005 a new oak tree and bench were installed on the adjacent corner, by school house, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Trafalgar.