Parkend, Gloucestershire
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Parkend is a village in the Royal Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire which has a history dating back to the early 1800s. At one time it was a busy industrial village which also had many coal mines, an Ironworks and a Tinplate Works.
The village has two pubs with accommodation, two popular Guest Houses and a few holiday let properties. Parkend also has a thriving, CIU affiliated, Working Men's Club which has caravan facilities for visitors and a large function room available to hire (Free to Charities).
One of the natural attractions at Parkend is the RSPB Nagshead Nature Reserve. Parkend railway station is currently being restored, part of the Dean Forest Railway.A new housing development now stands on the site of the old Parkend House Hotel.
The village church, St Pauls, was built in the 1800s. It is beautifully situated on the edge of the village in a forest clearing. The shape provides the point of interest in being octagonal and cruciform, with the arms formed by the sanctuary, north and west transepts and west tower. It was built in 1822 by Henry Poole, a local priest, who designed and raised most of the money for building it through public subscription and his own generosity.
An impressive village building is the Dean Field Study Centre which is owned by Bristol City Education Authority and is used by visiting schoolchildren from that city, this building was the original engine house of the ironworks which was later converted by the Forestry Commission into a Forestry School who's students came from across the world to study. The coke furnace at the Ironworks had a 15m (50 ft) waterwheel, two of the storage ponds to power the wheel are now a local beauty spot - Cannop Ponds. The Parkend site produced great quantities of iron, perhaps as much as 200,000 tons over its life, but by the end of the nineteenth century smelting had ceased as a result of dwindling ore deposits.
Parkend has a cricket club that has several teams at different age levels. The Parkend Players is one of the many organisations in the village; it performs most of its shows at the Memorial Hall in Parkend, the village also has a very thriving and active Women's Institute. The Parkend Carnival on August Bank Holiday Monday is renowned throughout the Forest and surrounding towns and villages as being one of the biggest and best. In the summer, regular Sunday Car Boot Sales are held on the Recreation Field, the profits from which goes to support the Memorial Hall.
Parkend is also the site of the only ever reported 'Moose-Pig' sighting, by Desmond Cassidy in the early 1800s.
