Dymock

For the Australian bookseller, see Dymocks Booksellers.

Dymock church and War Memorial

Dymock is a small village in the Forest of Dean district of Gloucestershire, England about four miles south of Ledbury, with a population of approx. 300 people.

It was the eponymous home of the Dymock poets from the period 1911-1914. The homes of Robert Frost and Wilfrid Wilson Gibson can still be seen there. Dymock is renowned for its wild daffodils in the spring, and these were probably the inspiration for the line "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood" in Frost's poem The Road Not Taken, which was a gentle satire on his great friend, and fellow Dymock Poet, Edward Thomas.

Dymock is the origin of the Dymock Red, a cider apple, and Stinking Bishop cheese.

In the village of Dymock there are several interesting buildings which include cruck beam cottages; "The White House", which was the birthplace of John Kyrle - the "Man of Ross" in 1637, Ann Cam School of 1825 and St Mary's Church, a patchwork history in brick and stone with Anglo-Norman origins. Nearby stands the only remaining village pub, which was purchased by Parish Council to help preserve a thriving village. The pub is rented and run by a landlord and supported by a local fundraising and social committee "Friends of the Beauchamp Arms"(FOBA).

Dymock was served by the Hereford & Gloucester Canal, opened in 1845; this closed in 1881 and the section between Ledbury and Gloucester converted into a railway line, a branch line of the Great Western Railway, though a stretch between Dymock and Newent was by-passed as it was decided not to take the line through the 2,192 yard Oxenhall Tunnel. Dymock had a station on this line. The line closed in 1959, but the canal (including the tunnel), is now being restored.

Dymock gave its name to a school of Romanesque sculpture first described in the book The Dymock School of Sculpture by Eric Gethin Jones (1979). The school is noted for its use of stepped volute capitals and its stylised "tree of life" motif on tympana.

Dymock is the ancestral home of the Dymoke family who are the Royal Champions of England. It is thought that the Dymokes first lived at Knight's Green, an area just outside of the village of Dymock.

Dymock is also the birthplace of Frederick Turville on the 16th of June 1991.

In 2011 the village of Dymock featured on Countryfile, where the Dymock poets were looked into in more detail.

References

• Eric Gethin Jones: The Dymock School of Sculpture 1979
• Thomas Hinde: The Domesday Book, England’s Heritage, Then & Now 1985

External links

• Dymock Community Web Site
• Dymock Family Web Site (England, U.S.A., and Canada. With extensive information on the Royal Champions
• Photos of Dymock and surrounding area on geograph.org.uk

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Coordinates: 51°59′N 2°26′W / 51.983°N 2.433°W / 51.983; -2.433