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Bradley House was believed to have been built for Samuel Hewlett. From the Dean Heritage Centre in Soudley the road goes east and then south past Bradley Hill towards Blakeney. Part of this valley was a centre for ironworking in the late 1700's. Before the road crosses the bridge a left-hand, seemingly dead-end road, leading to the remnants of the Lower Soudley Ironworks. About half a kilometre further south of the stone bridge is Bradley House.
Samuel Hewlett was an ironfounder and was living there in 1834. It is large, square, white house, built close to the brook as it made its way south eventually to the River Severn. Samuel was still living there at the 1851 census. We also know he owned several other cottages further downstream close towards Two Bridges. Samuel was born in the small village of Whitminster, not far from Frampton on Severn, in 1769. He moved to the Forest of Dean where he married Mary Samuel, at Newnham, on 9th April 1795. Together Samuel and Mary had 15 children! Samuel died at Bradley Hill (where I once lived!) on 3rd April 1852. |
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