The Lawless Area

Extracted from Parish Magazine – October 1963

Lawlessness in the Kingswood Area.

KINGSWOOD FOREST AND KINGS CHASE

The Longwell Green Coachworks are bounded on the west side by Kingsfield Lane and an old map shows that not far from the top of the lane there used to be a windmill.  One document refers to this area as Windmill Hill or Mount Hill and at one time this was in the very thick of the Kingswood Forest.

It has always been recognized that dwellers in forests were usually tough folk, sometimes law breakers and bandits, but none exceeded in lawlessness and violence as those who dwelt in Kingswood forest and this part of the forest in particular.

Kings-Wood was originally a royal demesne (a manor house with lands adjacent to it, but not let out to tenants) as the old form of the name Kings-Wood indicates.  It covered an area of 18 square miles and was attached to the Anglo-Saxon palace of Pucklechurch, where King Edmund, grandson of Alfred the Great, was assassinated on the eve of St. Augustine’s Day, 26^th May 946.  He came to the throne at the age of eighteen, a mere lad, and had reigned for six years when, at the age of twenty-four, he was slain in his own palace by a bandit in a hand-to-hand struggle but then the thrust of a dagger ended the King’s life.  A few days later the body of Edmund was carried out of the palace grounds over the rough tracks and on to Glastonbury for burial in the early Abbey, the then resting place of Kings.  The forest was thickly studded with trees, chiefly oaks, firs and giant hollies, although because it was the hunting ground of Kings there were almost certainly some open spaces like Rodway Hill, etc.

In the 13^th century, under a charter of disafforestation (1228), it was reduced in size to about 4,500 acres of wood, scrub and waste land and then known as Kingswood Chase and this was approximately the area covered by Wesley where the name Kingswood is mentioned in connection of his preaching and ministering.  Just about the time that “forest” gave way to “Chase” coal was discovered there.  This comprised a considerable belt about four miles wide, running due north and south which became known as the great coalfield of Bristol.  Kingswood was for long time governed by Bristol Castle, then by the Mayor and burgesses of Bristol, but after the Restoration it was divided in 1661 into what were called “Liberties” – portions claimed by certain “Lords” as their manoral right, with permission to cut wood and get coal.  Ownership was loosely defined, hence the constant squabbles and lawsuits between holders of different manors.

With the passing of the years the last of more than 2,000 head of deer (at one time over 5,000) had disappeared from the wood, and much of the game also, leaving nothing but names as Cock Road, Cockshot Hill and Royate Hill (Roegate) to remind us of the Roe and Woodcock once found there in plenty, and of course there is Magpie Bottom.  The approximate bounds of the forest as it affected our own district can be gauged by names given to new roads in recent times, notably “Rangers Walk” and “Forest Edge”.  The noble trees, especially the hollies, were cut down ruthlessly, and used to prop up the workings of the coal pits.  Much timber was claimed for the building of ships of the Kings Navy.  Foresters and miners entrenched themselves or, as we say today, “squatted” here and there in the wood and so appropriated holdings for their cottages and cattle.  A list of the inhabitants of the Chase of Kingswood in 1684 shows a total of 216 persons, 123 of whom are colliers, coal carriers, and coal miners and there were more than seventy pits.  The names given to some of them seem to indicate the hopes and fears of the workers – such as Sound(s)well, Starve-all, Strip-and-at-it, and Made-for-ever.

In the next 50 years the number of coal works were more than doubled and thousands of colliers were employed in the Kingswood of that day.  When towards the end of the last century a track was laid up through our High Street (then known as Hanham Street) for the electric trams, all the rouble and surplus soil removed in the process was dumped into one of those pits which was not far from the back gardens of the two police houses near the end of Abbots Avenue.

Long after the industrial changes in Kingswood, many of the residents retained the fierce, wild manners of their forestry forefathers and there were still enough trees left in the district to afford plenty of cover for wickedness.  The one storey huts (often of one room only) were as dirty within as the lives of some of them were dark.  Many of the colliers’ huts were nests of crime.  A weekly paper of 1811 recorded a terrible riot there.  They went from pit to pit armed with clubs and firearms compelling Assistance under pain of death.  They filled up four mines in White’s Hill (area of Willways Laundry) and destroyed appliances at others.  Eventually armed forces had to be called out to deal with them.  Terrorism was organised and the parish of Bitton, which then included Kingswood, Hanham and Longwell Green, was kept in dread.  Many inhabitants paid the gangs 10/6d or 5/- per year as a bribe against robbing them of poultry and other things.  This levy was openly and regularly collected.  Ten persons from the Bitton parish died on the gallows in three years.  Cock Road, then a collier village, was foremost in such lawlessness.  Its elevated position gave its watchmen early sight of anyone likely to interfere.  From this safe centre expeditions for robbery and violence covered a wide area, which included Bristol, Bath, Gloucester, Hereford and even Manchester.  Those who had been robbed by them might be allowed to see their property paraded before their eyes, but neither they nor the constables dare reclaim it.

In 1811 an association was formed to combat it, and they, with the help of constables, watchmen and city guards, subsequently captured all the men of the village.  Very few were liberated as innocent.  Many were transported.  Several were hanged.  In 1815 there were in Gloucester goal 25 prisoners committed for divers offences.  They were spoken of as “The Cockroad Gang”.  The most notorious characters of the gang were the family of Benjamin Cains.  The eldest son, George, was transported for life.  Thomas and Benjamin were executed for burglary.  James, a grandson of old Benjamin, executed for murder.  Francis and Thomas, grandsons, transported, other descendants transported or executed.  Three daughters had their husbands transported or executed.  Richard Bryant (the noted “Dickboy”), Ben Kayford and George Ward (alias “Dagger”) and some others, all hanged at Gloucester, Bristol, Salisbury and Ilchester.  Now you know why Wesley, Whitfield and other Christian stalwarts chose Kingswood for their battle ground in which to ‘fight the good fight with all their might’.

Note that original spellings have been used