I have just come across a comprehensive list of pubs in the Forest that we have lost in the past 30 years.

The research work for this was carried out by Geoff Sandles, local historian specialising in the pubs and breweries of Gloucestershire, with published works on these businesses in Gloucester, Cheltenham, the Cotswolds and especially the Forest of Dean. My wife Ann and I, around 30 years ago, conducted an 18 month tour of all 137 licensed pubs in the Forest at the time, and it is sad to see that we have lost many since then.

The loss of pubs is not a new thing. You may have noticed a distinctive motif of a castle on the walls of some forest houses. Closer examination will reveal that it is surrounded by the text ‘West Country Ales’, ‘Best in the West’ and ‘1760’. The building may be a pub, more likely an ex-pub, one of the increasing number of local ex-pubs in our part of the world, now perhaps a private residence. Of the pubs we visited on this epic pub crawl, at least 40 are now no longer trading, leaving several dry publess villages, including Awre, Tutshill, Beachley, Stowe (near St Briavels), and Brierley. Brockweir might have been added to this sad list. In the 19th Century it contained 17 public houses for the busy river trade, and its last remaining pub has been saved by epic work of the local community in restoring its pub for the local community and for walkers who are finishing or just starting Offa’s Dyke border path.

On a journey along the A48 from Gloucester to Lydney you will see the sad derelict remains of formerly busy pubs the Apple Tree at Minsterworth and the Victoria at Newnham. From Lydney to Chepstow you will pass the former Cross Keys at Tutshill and the former Swan pub at Alvington, now a tea house. Former pubs by the Severn include the Old Ferry Inn at Beachley and the Old Severn Bridge at Purton, underneath the bridge which collapsed in 1960.

Amidst all this misery it is great to be able to report that the previously boarded up Hearts of Oak pub at Drybrook has been lovingly restored, and even won the Forest of Dean’s real ale award in 2024. Drybrook is dry no longer, in defiance of the trend towards pub closures.