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Of sportive wood run wild ; these pastoral farms 
Green to the very door ; and wreaths of smoke 
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees ! 
With some uncertain notice, as might seem, 
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, 
Or of some Hermit’s cave, where by his fire 
The Hermit sits alone.” 
At Newland the celebrated Oak was the first object of 
interest visited. The girth at its base is 46 feet in circumfer- 
ence, and at six feet from the ground it is 43 feet. 
Thence to Newland Church, where the Rev. W. H. 
Bagnall-Oakley, Lecturer of Jones’s Almhouses, read a paper 
giving its history. He said :— 
“Tt is a noble edifice, consisting of nave, chancel, two nave 
aisles (or chanting chapels), a chanting chapel on the 
south aisle, a porch and tower. There is no Norman 
work which is easily accounted for, as the parish was 
not formed until the reign of Edward I., when 
Newland was a dense forest. The styles of architecture 
are Decorated and Perpendicular, and, with the 
exception of a few trifling additions, the Church now 
stands as it left the hands of its builders, about the 
end of the fourteenth century. It is the mother 
church of Coleford, Bream, and Clearwell, and these 
parishes originally formed part of Newland, and were 
only provided with chapels for their religious services. 
King Edward I. gave the advowson of the Church 
to the Bishop of Llandaff, and on the 9th of February, 
1304-5, he granted him license to appropriate it to 
himself and his successors for ever. 
“The great tithes remained in the See of Llandaff until 
- 1856, when an exchange took place whereby St. 
Wooler, Newport was transferred from Gloucester to 
Llandaff, and Newland to Gloucester Diocese, and the 
Bishop of Gloucester has now the patronage of the 
living. 
“The font is of great interest, being a good specimen of 
very unusual date—1661. When the Gloucester and 
