PARKEND is a hamlet in the township of West Dean, and was formed into an ecclesiastical parish in 1842 from West Dean and Newland townships, and is known as St. Paul, Dean Forest: it has a station on the Severn and Wye railway, and is 4 miles south-east from Coleford, 14 south-east from Ross and 16 north-east from Chepstow, in the Forest of Dean division of the county, hundred of St. Briavels, petty sessional division of Coleford, union and county court district of Monmouth, rural deanery of South Forest and archdeaconry and diocese of Gloucester.

The church of St. Paul, consecrated in 1822, is an octagonal building of stone, in mixed styles, with a pinnacled western tower containing a clock and one bell: it was reseated in 1897 at a cost of about £300, and now affords 400 sittings. The register of baptisms and burials dates from the year 1822; marriages, 1836. The living is a perpetual curacy, net yearly value £280, including 4 acres of glebe, with residence, in the gift of the Bishop of Gloucester, and held since 1900 by the Rev. Daniel Josiah Banham B.A. of St. Catharine's College, Cambridge.

At YORKLEY WOOD are a mission church, seating 120 persons, and a Baptist chapel, erected in 1860, with 150 sittings. A new Church Cemetery, 1 acre in extent, was consecrated in May, 1862. Whitemead Park is the residence of Lionel Sherbrooke Osmaston esq. J.P. The principal landowner is the Crown. The soil is for the most part of a stiff clayey nature, and the land is mostly used for the growth of timber. The area is 4,676 acres; the population in 1911 was 2,590.

FUTTERILL is 2 miles south-east from Coleford station on the Severn and Wye and Great Western railways. Letters through Coleford, which is the nearest money order and telegraph office.

WHITECROFT, 5 miles south-east from Coleford, is situated in the vale betwixt rising ground covered with fine plantations of timber, and has a station on the Severn, Wye and Severn Bridge railway; the inhabitants, whose dwellings are scattered with singular irregularity, are mainly employed in the coal, chemical and quarry trades. There is a Wesleyan chapel, erected at a cost of £470, on a site given by Mr. T.H. Deakin.
[Kelly's Directory of Gloucestershire, 1923]