Lydbrook is a civil parish in the Forest of Dean, a local government district in the English county of Gloucestershire and is located in the Wye Valley.

Artifacts from Hangerberry and Eastbach on the south west corner of the parish, and Lower Lydbrook show evidence of widespread activity from the Mesolithic period (Middle Stone Age 10,000–4000 BC) to the present.

However, from Norman times until the mid 19th century, it came under the Forest's Bailiff for Mitcheldean (in other words 'the Magna or Great Dean Bailiwick'), and thus was extra-parochial, or outside of a parish.

Lower Lydbrook was divided between the parishes of English Bicknor and Walford (served by the Church of St John the Baptist at Ruardean), with the Lyd forming the boundary.

[2] Lower Lydbrook was settled as part of the parishes of English Bicknor and Ruardean, and was the focus of the iron industry.

Upper Lydbrook lay within the Forest boundary which had been part of the Bailiwick of Mitcheldean, and had been encroached (housing being built within what was once strictly a Crown preserve), serving as a focus for the mining community.

The development of the encroachment, continued into the Bailiwick of Magna Dean (Mitcheldean), the area which became known as Upper Lydbrook and Joys Green.

One call to fame of the recent past, which now is thankfully no longer true, is that Humphrey Phelps, in his book on the Forest of Dean recalls that in the 1950s Lydbrook had the highest incidence of tuberculosis in England.

The village is home to the Lydbrook brass band, a flourishing ensemble whose TV appearances include the Lotto Advert in 2014 and Countryfile in 2019.

In 2017, the Forestry Commission commenced a project to introduce Eurasian beavers into an enclosed area of land uphill of the village, as part of a habitat-management programme: among the anticipated outcomes is the reduction in likelihood of further flash floods occurring.

In the 1590s records exist of what became known as the Upper Forge at Lydbrook built by Thomas Bainham and later owned by Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex.

In 1818 James Russell purchased the Ironworks upstream of the Upper Forge, opposite the Bell Inn, where he created a wireworks.

With the greater resources available the plant at Stowfield further expanded, and was well placed to help with the Second World War possessing one of only four machines for making lead alloy tube needed for P.L.U.T.O.

Integrated with the Siemens Brothers Cable Works at Woolwich the Stowfield Factory at its height employed approximately 1,100 people.

The Cable Works came to an end in 1966 when the factory was bought by Reed Paper Group, which in its turn was taken over by a Swedish Company SCA.

By the 18th century, Lydbook was an important location for the production of tin plate, and a book published in 1861 compared Lydbrook to Sheffield.

Lydbrook having its own collieries – Arthur & Edward (also called Waterloo as it opened in 1815), The Deep Level, The Old Soot Bag, The Old Engine, Worrall Hill Mine.

Modern road communications with the surrounding areas has opened the village up to outsiders with the new phenomenon of holiday homes, being once the cottages of the Foresters.

In 1872, fifty years on from 1822, the allocation of space being more generous per person, the school was (according to the record of the time) enlarged to "seat 250 pupils".

The school was due to be opened 30 August 1909, but the building work had not been completed so the children had the benefit of being granted an extra week's holiday.

In 1920 the committee purchased the building and lands known as 'The Poplars', and on 11 November 1926 the Lydbrook Memorial Hall, Men's and Women's Institute came into being at a cost of £3,150 opened by the blind Victoria Cross holder of Coleford, Captain Angus Buchanan.

In the second decade of the 19th century, the Reverend William Woodall, Wesleyan Methodist minister of Monmouth had established a preaching circuit within the Forest of Dean and as part of this venture, a house was registered for worship in Lydbrook on 15 May 1813.

Mr Edward Goff who died in 1813 had left eleven thousand pounds to establish schools for the benefit of poor children in Herefordshire and places contingent.

The mission chapel at Upper Lydbrook would have been the larger of the two and by 1935 had grown to such a large size in congregation, thoughts were on enlarging the building.

Initially Bridgeman used the Church of England Liturgy but by 1825 had joined himself to the Congregationalists and thus further their missionary endeavours within the Forest of Dean.

Once full to capacity, over the length of years the congregation declined to such a point where only occasional services were held, and the building eventually fell into disuse.

The largest proportion of this money -a generous donation of £2,000 was a gift from Edward T Machen, Deputy surveyor of the Royal Forest (father of the Rector of Mitcheldean) and his relatives.

Messrs Allaway-Partridge gave £250 and a grant of £230 given by the 'Incorporated Society for Promoting the Enlargement, Building and Repairing of Churches and Chapels' on the condition that the seats were to be free for the use of the poor for ever.

The patronage (or the right to present a priest for appointment as vicar) originally belonged jointly to the Crown and Queen's College, Oxford.

The station was constructed in the hamlet of Stowfield approximately half a mile from Lydbrook and its viaduct on the Severn and Wye Railway.