Use your browser search feature to locate "Chase" in the text below and learn what else went by our name. TIDENHAM INCLUDING LANCAUT TIDENHAM lies on the boundary of Gloucestershire and Monmouthshire to the east of Chepstow. The parish forms a roughly wedge-shaped area between the broad estuary of the Severn on the east and the meandering course of the Wye on the west, tapering towards the south into a narrow peninsula at the confluence of the two rivers. Crossing points of the rivers, notably the Severn passage at Beachley, played an important part in the development of settlement, and fisheries were a major factor in the economy of Tidenham from late Saxon times when it was a large royal manor. Tidenham later became part of the Marcher lordship of Striguil whose lords created a hunting chase in the manor. Offa's Dyke, once marking the boundary between the lands of the English and Welsh, runs down the western side of the parish but excludes two areas, the peninsula of Lancaut formed by a meander of the Wye, and the Beachley peninsula on the south. Lancaut evidently remained in Welsh occupation in the 8th century when the dyke was built, but by 956 it was part of the English king's manor of Tidenham. (Footnote 1) Nevertheless it retained its separate identity within the manor; (Footnote 2) in the Middle Ages it was a separate ecclesiastical parish, (Footnote 3) and in the later 19th century it was accorded the status of a civil parish, amounting to 218 a., being merged in Tidenham parish in 1935. (Footnote 4) Beachley was also part of Tidenham manor by 956 and was apparently the area described in a Saxon survey of the manor made then or later as lying 'outside the inclosed land' and let in part to Welsh sailors; (Footnote 5) it has been suggested that the small seaport existed at the time of the building of the dyke and was excluded by it in order to leave both sides of the mouth of the Wye, and the Severn crossing at Beachley, under Welsh control. (Footnote 6) In 956 the bounds of Tidenham manor followed the Severn on the east and the Wye on the west while the northern and north-eastern boundary between the two rivers followed a series of landmarks some of which can be identified. (Footnote 7) The boundary began at Yewtree Headland, the neck of land on the Wye opposite Tintern where the woods still contained many yews in 1969, ran on to the Stone Row, and then to White Hollow (Hwitan Heal), a name which survives in Whitewalls, a house east of Oakhill Wood; (Footnote 8) it then passed through Yew Valley, Broad Moor, and Twyford, where the Piccadilly and Black brooks join at the main Gloucester-Chepstow road, (Footnote 9) and came to a pill on the Severn later called Horse Pill. (Footnote 10) Those bounds took no account of Madgett, an area of 311 a. lying within the northern boundary of the parish. (Footnote 11) In 956 Madgett was probably already detached from Tidenham manor, for the manor was extended at 30 hides (Footnote 12) as it was in 1066 when Madgett was certainly no longer part of it, being held with one of the Woolaston manors; (Footnote 13) Madgett remained part of Woolaston parish until 1882 when it was merged with Tidenham. (Footnote 14) The original boundary on the north-east presumably ran from Park Hill through Mereway Grove and down the Piccadilly brook to Twyford, but later an irregular arm of Woolaston parish extended into Tidenham as far as Ashwell Grange and a small detached piece of Tidenham survived within that arm near Ashwell Grove. (Footnote 15) The irregular boundary appears to have resulted from allotments of tithes to the respective parishes at the inclosure by Tintern Abbey of the Ashwell Grange estate from the waste in the early Middle Ages; (Footnote 16) much of the 119 a. of assarts made by the abbey in Tidenham before 1282 (Footnote 17) probably lay in that area. The detached piece of Tidenham was merged with Woolaston in 1882, (Footnote 18) and the boundary in that area was rationalized in 1935 when 113 a. of Tidenham between Ashwell Grange and the Piccadilly brook were transferred to Woolaston. (Footnote 19) The account given here relates to Tidenham parish as it existed before the boundary changes (an area of 6,065 a., excluding river foreshore) (Footnote 20) and to Lancaut; the history of Madgett is given under Woolaston. The east and south parts of the parish are lowlying, mainly at under 100 ft., and the land is formed chiefly by the Keuper Marl. East of Sedbury, however, the Lower Lias overlying the Rhaetic beds forms an area of higher ground terminating in Sedbury Cliffs (Footnote 21) which rise to c. 150 ft. above the Severn. North of Pill House a stretch of flat meadow land bordering the Severn is formed by alluvial deposits. (Footnote 22) Sea-walls to defend that part against the river were being maintained in the late 13th century, (Footnote 23) but in 1969 they were no longer kept up and survived only in short stretches, for in recent years a considerable area of land had been gained from the river and planted with grass; the river's action has also added land to the bank further south, in Beachley Bay. (Footnote 24) In the late 17th and early 18th centuries the Tidenham manor court was concerned with the upkeep of sea-walls along the Wye on the west side of the Beachley peninsula. (Footnote 25) To the northwest of the main Gloucester-Chepstow road the land rises steeply to c. 550 ft. before levelling off to form a wide plateau; on the west side the land falls even more steeply to the Wye, in places forming bare rock cliffs at 200-300 ft. above the wooded banks of the river. In the north-western part the land is formed mainly by the Carboniferous Limestone, although a strip of the Old Red Sandstone intervenes on the hill slopes to the east, and there are two considerable areas of Millstone Grit on the northern plateau and patches of Dolomitic Conglomerate on the west. (Footnote 26) In 1292 the reeve of the manor sold 316½ horse-loads of coal from Tidenham Chase in the north of the parish; (Footnote 27) the tenants reported that coals could be found on the chase in 1584, (Footnote 28) and the lord of the manor was negotiating with miners for the exploitation of the deposits there in 1677. (Footnote 29) The limestone of the parish has been extensively quarried both for local building purposes and for export from the parish. (Footnote 30) The whole parish of Tidenham lay at one time within the Forest of Dean, but by the early 13th century the lords of the manor had appropriated a great hunting chase extending across both Tidenham and Woolaston, and the exclusion of the two parishes from the jurisdiction of the forest had been established by the end of the century. The earliest record found of Tidenham Chase was in 1228 when it was said to have existed from antiquity, (Footnote 31) but other jurors in the 13th century attributed its creation to William Marshal (d. 1219). (Footnote 32) In the 1270s the chase was said to stretch from Chepstow Bridge to the Cone brook on the Woolaston- Alvington boundary; on the north it was presumably confined by the original Woolaston-Hewelsfield boundary, for the lord of Tidenham was reported to have extended its bounds into Hewelsfield during Henry III's reign. (Footnote 33) The jurors perambulating the Forest of Dean in 1228 regarded the chase as still being part of the forest, as did those of 1282 who gave the confluence of Severn and Wye as the forest's southern boundary; (Footnote 34) in 1267, however, the Cone brook had been stated to form the boundary between the forest and the Earl of Norfolk's lordship. (Footnote 35) The distinction was made again in other evidence given in 1282, when it was complained that the earl's riding forester in the chase and others were accustomed to make poaching expeditions into the forest and then return to the chase where they could not be attached because it lay outside the county. (Footnote 36) The exclusion of Tidenham and Woolaston from the forest was confirmed From: 'Tidenham including Lancaut: Introduction', A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 10: Westbury and Whitstone Hundreds (1972), pp. 50-62. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=15757&strquery=chase. Date accessed: 24 August 2005.