The Forest of Dean

A beautiful journey in the November sunshine through the Forest of Dean. Spending so much time as a small child on the borders of the Forest, just outside Monmouth, I had known about its existence but had never really got to know the place until family history research took me there some years later. I had driven along the A449 from the M50 to the M4 countless times and always loved the sight to my left. Day trips to Chepstow and Tintern Abbey gave a taste of what the area had to offer but it was only following the lives of those in the 19th century that I feel I truly began to get to know the place. Wandering into the church at St Braivel's and seeing the list of clergymen over the years in the porch with  the name of the one who married Isaac and Jane in 1843. Having a drink in a pub near to Tidenham Chase and talking to the owner who confirmed that families with the same name still lived there. Walking up to the church at Tidenham in the steps of Charles and Eliza who married there in 1870. On a walk along Offa's Dyke some years ago we came across a cottage which had been the home of ancestors and would have loved to have knocked on the door. House hunting in an area not too far from the Forest at the moment has, on occasions, stretched to cover some of the villages we love there. My abiding memory of the Forest, though, is a sad one. The funeral of an uncle at what must be one of the most wonderful settings for a crematorium in the land. I went alone but sat looking out of the floor to ceiling glass window at the Forest and knew that Alf was at rest.