The Forest has a wide collection of places and the personalities involved with them of great local, national or international significance over the last thousand years or so. Here’s a brief history:

Berry Hill will always be associated with the great and innovative playwright, Dennis Potter, whose Forest themes entertained the national television viewers of the country for many years, and whose final television appearance was a brave dialogue with Melvyn Bragg ‘Seeing the Blossom’, just a few days before he died.

Blakeney was the birthplace of Thomas Sternhold, a surviving favourite of Henry VIII who was the first translator of the Psalms into English

Brierley: great writer Winifred Foley made her childhood life in the Forest a national story

Brockweir: Flora Klickmann settled in the village to write the Flowerpatch series of children’s stories

Cinderford: Bumps Carpenter was the Cinderford rugby prop forward who broke the snobbish social barriers which were based on public school prejudices, to play for England in the 1930s. And the face of Catherine Drew, the important local poet of the19th Century, adorns buildings in the town.

More recently, the local alternative rock band with national reputation EMF received local acknowledgement with a plaque in the middle of town.

Clearwell, here the great 18th Century castle was built by Thomas Wyndham

Coleford features Robert Mushet, the pioneering 19th century engineer and Angus Buchanan, first world war hero and the name and force behind Coleford recreational features, as related by Clive Hooper, the secretary of the Angus Buchanan recreational trust.

And the town still records the English Civil war battles in the 1640s, when the invading Welsh royalist troops enjoyed a brief victory before succumbing to their final defeat to Colonel Massie’s Parliamentary army.

Dymock: Geoff Dymock was an Australian cricketer and administrator, who visited his family heritage on an Australian cricket tour of England.

The Dymock Poets were a coterie of famous poets congregated in Dymock before First World war. Edward Thomas, Rupert Brook and the famous American poet Robert Frost were the leading members of this literary group.

Gatcombe: Sir Francis Drake was the famous leader of the English naval fleet in defeating the Spanish armada in 1588, and is believed to have visited this village when it was a busy port on the River Severn.

Lydney: There is much ancient history there, with a rich Roman heritage, and an ancient riverside harbour for the import and the export of coal in its heyday. The Bathurst/ Bledisoe family were instrumental in the development of Lydney Harbour and the area around Bathurst Park, and the author of the Lord of the Rings Professor J.R.R. Tolkien identified the origins and meaning of the name Nodens, with references to the Irish magical king Nuadu. The Romano-Celtic temple in Lydney Park, dedicated to Nodens has fuelled the suggestion that Tolkien’s ring-related writings were based on his archaeological work there.

That’s A-L, M-Z to follow next week.