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A brief history of Yorkley & District.
Local recreation

The village hall, sometimes known as the Institute or Green Hut (!) was built in 1923 as a Miners Welfare Hall for the benefit and enjoyment of the many miners and their families living in the area.

The area's earliest recreation ground was between Yorkley and Oldcroft on waste land given for public use circa1893 and was used by a cricket club in 1914. Further east towards Viney Hill a football ground laid out opposite All Saints' school before 1957, included the new building of a sports and social club in 1993. At Pillowell the earliest recreation ground was on land at the edge of Kidnalls wood, to the south, donated by Lord Bledisloe circa1919.

Whitecroft has a memorial hall dating from 1924. A later building next to it has been used as an institute and by local societies and clubs. The village had a successful rugby club before the First World War and a male voice choir in the mid 20th century. At Brockhollands a small hall was built by the miners' welfare committee in the early 1930s.

     
Brass Bands

Among brass bands in the area was one at Yorkley in 1853 and one founded at Pillowell in 1889. Yorkley Onward band started in 1903 as an offshoot of the Pillowell band and its hall, built in 1913, has been used for village activities. In 1897 there was a mutual improvement and choral society in Pillowell. 

In 1994, Yorkley Onward Band amalgamated with Coleford Town Band to form Forest of Dean Brass.

     
Public Houses

In 1841 the Yorkley area contained three beer houses on Crown land, one each at Viney Hill, Yorkley, and Pillowell. At Viney Hill the Albion inn, where a burial club met, and a Blakeney friendly society held its anniversary in 1855, closed after 1957 and the New Inn, recorded from 1876 is still open. The Nag's Head, the oldest inn in Yorkley, had opened by 1788.

Later inns there, including the Stag opened by 1870, have closed, apart from the Bailey (formerly the Royal Oak) inn. At Pillowell a beer house known in 1901 as the Royal Foresters' Arms closed after 1958 but at Phipps Bottom the Swan, so called in 1891, is still open.

Whitecroft had the Miners' Arms, one of the beerhouses there in 1841. Among friendly societies meeting at the Nag's Head was a branch of the Odd Fellows established in 1834 and, in 1853, a women's benefit society.

     

The Yorkley and Pillowell co-operative society, formed by 1892,  traded at Pillowell. In 1955 it merged with the Gloucester society.

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October 2011
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