| Green Bottom is a small hamlet on the road from Littledean towards Flaxley and Abenhall. It lies in the Vale of Castiard, so named in Roman times for the chestnut trees that grow there. There are just 12 houses in this small place, but it has its own Baptist Chapel called Beulah Chapel. Beulah is a female given name in Hebrew. The chapel was built in 1877. Behind Green Bottom is Welshbury Hill, an Iron Age fort. Nearby is Flaxley Abbey, originally a Cistercian Monastery founded in about 1148. The monks owned an ironworks and forge and, after the dissolution of the monastries the iron works continued. My Burgum family lived and worked in Flaxley at the ironworks. The Crawley-Boevey family famously lived there. In 1960 Fred Watkins, a local industrialist, bought Flaxley Abbey. Baden Watkins very kindly gave me a tour of the house, the grounds and the iron workings, which were not far away. He sold the property in about 2000. |