The rich history of Gloucestershire pubs is being documented on a website created by the chairman of the Forest branch of the Campaign for Real Ale.
Geoff Sandles has been carrying out the research for his Gloucestershire Pubs website for 25 years in what he describes as “a labour of love”.
Here he shares some of the stories he has discovered from the Forest.
He said: “You have to feel sorry for poor Henry Evans who was sent to prison for six weeks in May 1884 for stealing some broccoli, worth just three pence, from Charles Powell, landlord of the Lamb Inn in Gloucester Road, Coleford.
“Similarly in November 1893 Joseph Davis was charged with stealing a frying pan, worth one shilling, from John Pritchard, the landlord of the Carpenters Arms, Hewelsfield.
“He spent a month in jail.”
“Your sympathy won’t extend to Hiram Archer, a miner well known to the local constabulary, who got drunk with his mates at the Nags Head in Oldcroft on the night of 29 July 1851 and set upon a poor middle-aged woman called Mary McCarthy who was warming herself by a brazier outside the pub.
With the monster Archer acting as the callous ringleader she was brutally assaulted in turn by nine men.
“The Lydney Observer described it as: ‘The Brutal Outrage in the Forest,’
“Archer and his accomplices were sentenced to transportation for life.”
A couple of pubs are central to one of the most notorious episodes in Forest history – the killing of the performing bears at Ruardean.
The ringleader of the gang that led to the senseless death of the bears on April 26 1889 was found to be George Wicks, landlord of the Jovial Colliers in Ruardean Woodside.
It may have been that the tragedy had it roots in taunts and malicious rumours as the black bears passed drunken colliers at the Old Engine Inn in Steam Mills that they had killed a child.
Found guilty of affray, 49-year-old Wicks was ordered to pay a hefty fine of £26 – around £2,100 in today’s money – or face going to prison for two months.
He was said to be of good character and paid the charge. His 21-year old-son, Robert Wilkes, was also among the guilty.
At Littledean Petty Sessions annual licensing day on August 23 1889, Police Superintendent Ford opposed the renewal of the license of the Jovial Colliers for George Wilkes.
“This man, it was alleged, instigated the recent attack on the Frenchmen and their bears.” Fortunately for George, a document signed by a large number of locals praying the licence by renewed was submitted to the court.
The unanswered question, which seems to have never been satisfactorily explained, is exactly where and why George Wilks got involved.
There is also the question why so many villagers keen to see his licence renewed?
Geoff is hoping to locate, describe and list all the pubs of Gloucestershire both past and present.
Geoff, 68, said: “Bearing in mind that the old county boundaries of Gloucestershire extended into the area now known as South Gloucestershire, the task is undeniably over-ambitious, and realistically I have no chance of ever completing the project
“My Gloucestershire Pubs website has been steadily evolving for at least 25 years, and it is based on old documents I discovered containing lists of pubs that existed in late Victorian and early Edwardian times.
“At least three quarters of those pubs have long since disappeared and my challenge was to re-discover exactly where they were and research old newspapers for articles relating to their social history.”
“In the Forest of Dean area many of the pubs were simply listed under East Dean and West Dean, making it difficult to pinpoint pubs that shared the same name such as the Rising Sun or the Miners Arms.”
Geoff has discovered hundreds of bygone pubs in the Forest and most of them have been identified and described on the website with accompanying photographs, old newspaper articles together with contemporary advertising.
Yet there is much more to do and some unanswered questions.
He is particularly interested in finding the exact location of the Folly Inn that was once located in Whitecliff just outside Coleford.
He said: “Admittedly it closed over 130 years ago, way beyond living memory, but this beer house has been difficult to track down.
“The Whitecliff furnace had closed by 1818, but the Folly Inn is known to be trading over 70 years later.
“I have discovered ruins of an isolated stone building on the ancient Rock Lane almost hidden away in vegetation.
“Could that have been the site of the elusive Folly Inn?”
Gloucestershire Pubs is purely a labour of love, free from advertising and self-funded by Mr Sandles.
He is determined to keep it commercially free. Last year there was a real danger that the thousands of hours that have gone into building up the website could have been irretrievably lost as his friend and beer drinking colleague, Dave Hedges, who had initially set up the website sadly passed away without safeguarding access to the webhosting company.
With no passwords or authority to access the website, Geoff eventually gained permission via Dave’s next of kin, his brother Simon.
The entire website has now been transferred to a web hosting company based in Coleford, 99 Web.
Geoff said: “They were astounded by how much content was on the website, it took many hours to safely transfer.”
Geoff would like to extend his gratitude to Ian Whitburn and the team at 99 Web for saving the website which has now been accessed by nearly 42,000 ‘hits’.
Geoff Sandles is currently the chairman of the Forest of Dean branch of CAMRA,and has had a passion for beer and pubs stretching back 50 years.
He was postman for 40 years delivering mail to the Cotswold village of Withington.
After he retired he and his wife Kathy moved from Brockworth to Coleford.
The Gloucestershire pubs website can by found at www.gloucestershirepubs.co.uk