September 13, 2009 - Gloucestershire and the Forest of Dean

The second largest Crown forest in England is the Forest of Dean in the county of Gloucestershire (pronounced Gloster-sheer), in the southwest of the country right next to Wales. Roughly bounded by the city of Gloucester (Gloster) to the east, the river Wye to the north and the west and the river Severn to the south, a large part of this 27,000 acres of mainly woodland was restricted to royal hunting prior to 1066 CE. Like the New Forest, we had never felt the urge to visit the Forest of Dean while we lived in England so this was our first experience. Again, like the New Forest, it did not trip our trigger and after a cursory drive through, we left and hunted down our next stopover. This turned out to be in a two pub hamlet with no discernible center - just two or three lanes off of the A38 road with a few scattered houses. Both the White Horse and the George Inn pubs are on the A38 but only the George had an accompanying campsite and thus became our home for a while.
The following day we embarked on what turned out to be a grueling bicycle ride and visited the village of Slimbridge and the town of Dursley. Pictures of this tawdry tale here.