The present hamlet of Moseley Green to the East of Parkend in the Forest of Dean is the location of our holiday cottage in September 2017. Historically it was alongside the Severn and Wye Railway’s Mineral Loop line. Prior to that two collieries are shown as existing on the site … Independent and Branchers. However, much of this industry was small scale and transient and records suggest a whole variety of different mines in the area.
The map above is an extract from the 1901 Ordnance Survey Map and shows evidence of the Independent and Branchers collieries. The Rising Sun Pub is prominent on this map and had been in existence on the site since the 18th Century.
Of these three images, one is from around the turn of the century and was taken by the Rev. A J Lumbert. It is a glass plate that has been hand-coloured. The location of the pub was close to two pits and the railway line and miners of the Forest have drunk here over many years. In 2017, the pub buildings have been enlarged. As the other pictures illustrate.
The food offered is excellent!
Moseley Green has always been a small hamlet. There isn’t a great deal of information about its history. The following notes can be found at http://www.forestofdeanhistory.org.uk …..
“Moseley Green New Engine gales were granted in 1842-3, and there was a Brick Pit on Newmanshropshire gale by 1855. The early history of the colliery is uncertain, but it was connected to both the Birches and Kidnalls Mills branches of the Severn and Wye tramroad, and later (after 1874) to the S&WR’s mineral loop. The period 1860 to 1895 was a chequered one, and by 1883 the colliery was idle. In 1895, when it was purchased by Messrs Johnson and Shepherd, it had two shafts (540 and 516 ft in depth, through seams in the Supra-Pennane after 1905. After several changes of ownership, the gales were transferred in 1915 to the Parkend Deep Navigation Collieries Co. Ltd, owners of the nearby New Fancy Colliery, who installed a new electric winding engine.”
A survey undertaken from Parkend up the road past the school to Moseley Green in April 1834 noted that Moseley Green was… “full of pits part of which are now working but the greater part are abandoned and filled up.” (3) The area is covered with bell pits and the note might indicate that some were still at work at that time.
Reference is made elsewhere to Morgan’s Folly … a series of pits in the area of Moseley Green. Some relevant notes are in Appendix 1
The closure of some of the collieries at Moseley Green in the early 1870s is inferred by the visible reuse of some of the spoil heaps as embankments for the Severn and Wye Mineral Loop Railway which was constructed between 1870 and 187 (4:p106).
A reference is made to a Pluckpenny Rockey Colliery in a 1896 survey. At the time of that survey work had apparently ceased (5). The owner was W.H. Jones, Stag Inn, Yorkley.
Religion
There were a number of short lived attempts to establish nonconformist worship in Moseley Green. The Congregationalists were, in 1860, holding services at Berry Hill and Coalway Lane End and in 1865 they had a small congregation at Moseley Green. That congregation, worshipping in a room at an abandoned colliery, included Mary Young, keeper of the Yorkley turnpike gate, with whose assistance Samuel Ford of Blakeney built a chapel at Moseley Green. The chapel, opened in 1866, was called Bethlehem and was sold to the Primitive Methodists in 1894.
Primitive Methodist services held at Moseley Green from 1859 were discontinued in 1864 for want of a congregation. They were resumed in 1867 and a chapel called Providence, standing north-east of the Barracks, was registered in 1879. In 1894 the meeting moved to the Independent chapel some way south but in 1898 it returned to its former home. The return led to a drop in support and in 1907 a new chapel was built on the Blakeney-Parkend road to the south. That chapel, which was abandoned in the mid 1950s, fell into ruin but in the late 1980s it was rebuilt as part of a new house.
Rosebank Cottage (http://www.rosebankholidaycottage.com)
In 2017, we stayed in Rosebank Cottage in Moseley Green. The cottage was one half of what was built as the Methodist Chapel in 1859 but closed in 1864. In 1960 the chapel was finally converted into two cottages losing most of its ‘chapel’ features. The 1881 Ordnance Survey clearly shows Rosebank Cottage cand its neighbour as Bethlehem Chapel.
Railway
Moseley Green sits alongside the Severn and Wye Joint Railway’s Mineral Loop which closed in the 1950s. It is just north of the north portal of the 503yd Moseley Green Tunnel. The tunnel must have been a nightmare for engine drivers. The rising grade of 1in 40 would have placed significant demands on the Pannier 0-6-0s in use in the forest, particularly when pulling a full load of coal wagons.
References
1. http://www.forestofdeanhistory.org.uk/resources/sites-in-the-forest/brick-pit
2. http://lightmoor.co.uk/forestcoal/CoalMorgansFolly.htmlhtml
3. Gloucestershire Society for Industrial Archaeology Journal for 2009 pages 14-22
4. https://content.historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/forest-of-dean-mapping-project-nmp/FoD_Final_Doc_web.pdf.
5. http://archive.pdmhs.com/1896%20Lists/1896-66.htm
Appendices
Appendix 1 – Morgan’s Folly
Lightmoor Press has identified activity in the Moseley Green area, recorded under the heading of Morgan’s Folly ….http://lightmoor.co.uk/forestcoal/CoalMorgansFolly.html
MORGAN’S FOLLY COLLIERY, No. 1
7 February 1843 to Thomas Morgan of Arthurís Folly near Parkend for a pit situate on Moseley Green about 90 yards north of Cockshot Inclosure and about 65 yards east of the Parkend – Blakeney turnpike road, to get the coal from the Coleford High Delf, Yorkley and Whittington veins.
MORGAN’S FOLLY COLLIERY, No. 2
27 June 1843 to Thomas Morgan, for a pit situate on Moseley Green about 250 yards on the deep side of the gale called Morganís Folly No. 1 to get coal from the Coleford High Delf and all unalloted veins between it and the Oaken Hill Delf.
MORGAN’S FOLLY COLLIERY, No. 3
11 March 1847 in equal parts to Samuel and Thomas Morgan, of the Folly, for a pit situate on Moseley Green, to get coal from the Coleford High Delf and all the unalloted veins above the same and below the Churchway High Delf or Oaken Hill Delf veins. On the land side of the deep workings of Morganís Folly No. 2.
F3 958. F3 291.
June 1859 Morgan’s Folly No. 3, Samuel Morgan proprietor.
Midsummer 1861 Arrears of rent for Morgan’s Folly No. 3 stand against Saml. and Thos. Morgan, Whitecroft.
F3 189
27 May 1895 Messrs. Bruton, Knowles & Co. will offer the Moseley Green Collieries and the plant etc. in one lot on Wednesday next. If the colliery not sold the auctioneers will offer machinery.
Connected to Severn & Wye by a siding.
Three gales in deep and three overlying viz. Moseley Green New Engine Colliery, Morgan’s Folly No. 1 Colliery, Morgan’s Folly No. 2 Colliery, Morgan’s Folly No. 3 Colliery, Moseley Green New Engine No.2 Colliery, and Two Brothers Colliery.
Total area of coal 1,700 acres, average thickness exceeding 3í 2î. 7,000,000 tons.
With the winding engines, two shafts, boilers, pumps, railway siding, foremanís house, workshops etc.
Wednesday May 29th 1895.
Sold to Shepherd and Johnson for £460.
There are now two significant sculptures at the site. The first is the Roll of Honour sculpture which was commissioned by the Forest of Dean Local History Society to honour those who worked and were killed or injured in the mines and quarries of the Forest of Dean. It was buil by Graham Tyler and John Wakefield and was unveiled in 2005. It consists of three elements – stone, iron (represented by rusted steel), and coal (represented by carved and blackened local oak) – and stands around 11 feet (3.4 m) high. Stainless steel discs set into the sculpture represent the tokens carried by miners to determine who was below ground in the event of accidents.
geology and mines of the area, was unveiled at the New Fancy picnic site in May 2008. It was commissioned by the local history society, who received a grant from DEFRA’s Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund, and was constructed by sculptor David Yeates of Mitcheldean before being assembled on site. The rock strata depicted are built from samples of the rock they represent. Metal discs represent the locations of the main iron and coal mines and quarries, with black lines to represent coal seams and white lines for railway routes. It is flat and polished, but not shiny, and is intended to be walked on.
Wikipedia suggests thst the New Fancy colliery was opened by Edward Protheroe in 1827, as part of the Park End Coal Company in the Forest of Dean. It seems that he acquired the interest from his uncle in 1812. Details are scarce, however the 1841 Coal Awards confirmed the possession of the New Fancy gale to Edward Protheroe. In the Third Schedule to the 1841 Awards it is mentioned that in 1831 Edward Protheroe was granted a license to erect a pumping and winding engine at New Fancy but it is likely that this was not done as in a list of coal works in March 1841 there is no mention of New Fancy. The gale itself was certainly being worked by 1840, probably through the Parkend gale, as in that year Protheroe stated that he required a ‘better, cheaper, outlet’ for his New Fancy coals. The cheaper outlet would come about by sinking a shaft on the New Fancy gale thus avoiding the wayleave charged by the Crown on all coal from one gale passing through the barrier into another. The New Fancy gale award covered the coal in the Churchway High Delf, Rockey, Starkey, Park End High Delf, Little Delf and Smith Coal veins.
By around 1852 it seems that two shafts were being sunk. These seem to have been completed in 1857. At the first half-yearly meeting of the Forest of Dean Central Railway Company it was stated that the colliery ‘was in a forward state and will when opened afford large traffic’. The colliery was producing coal by 1860 when 250 tons a day were being sent over the Severn & Wye’s Kidnalls Mill, or Moseley Green, branch of the tramroad. A connection to this branch had been authorised and built in 1859. It was to be another ten years before the colliery gained a railway connection in the form of a branch of the Forest of Dean Central which was authorised under a Crown license dated 6th April 1868. The large traffic hoped for over this route diminished rapidly when the Mineral Loop was opened in 1872 and a connection was made to the colliery. It is likely that the rails on the Central’s connection had been removed by 1878.
Wikipedia suggests that, by 1860, the Colliery was owned by Sully & Company and in 1885 was sold to the Parkend & New Fancy Collieries Company. However, this may be an oversimplification. By 1878 James Sully was the only remaining partner in the Park End Coal Company and the Parkend Coal Company Ltd. was formed to acquire the collieries. The subscribers to the new company were James Sully and Richard Sully, both described as coal merchants from Bridgewater, Somerset, John Nicholls, also of Bridgewater, William Unwin of Oxford, John Bailey, Sydney Thomas of Parkend House, colliery manager and Thomas Thomas.
It appears that the new company may have been heavily in debt from the start. By 1880 it was in difficulties. At that time the company wasthought to possess nine-hundred acres of coal in the Starkey seam in connection with New Fancy. Probably the collieries were bought by a Mr. Jackson in 1881.
Some lengths of the formation remain, as do some of the structures. Part of the Blakeney Viaduct is still extant as is the Blackpool Bridge.
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