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the
FOREST OF DEAN;
an historical and descriptive account,
derived from personal observation, and other sources, public,
private, legendary,
and local.

By H. G. NICHOLLS,
M.A.,
PERPETUAL CURATE OF HOLY TRINITY, DEAN FOREST.

John Murray, Albemarle Street.
1858.

p.
vPREFACE.

Disappointment expressed by others and felt by myself that a History of
the Forest of Dean should never have appeared in print, and an impression
that a considerable amount of interesting information relative to it might
be brought together, combined I may add with the fact that there seemed no
probability of such a work being otherwise undertaken until old usages and
traditions had passed away, have induced me to attempt its
compilation.  I here venture to publish the fruit of my labours, in
the hope that the reader may derive some portion of that pleasure which the
prosecution of the work has afforded me, and trusting that the same
indulgent consideration which led the officers of the Government, the
gentlemen of the neighbourhood, and many of the intelligent Foresters to
aid in the execution, will by them and the public be extended to the work
itself.

I have endeavoured to make it as complete as possible by supplying every
known circumstance, mostly in the words of the original narrator, and yet
trying so to harmonize the whole as to engage the attention of the general
reader, but more particularly of the residents in the district, by
acquainting them with the past and present state of one of the most
interesting and remarkable localities in the kingdom.

H. G. N.

July, 1858.

p.
viiCONTENTS.

p.
xiiLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

p.
1CHAPTER I.
a.d. 1307–1612.

Origin of the name “Dean”?—The
“Buck Stone,” and other Druidical remains—“The
Scowles,” &c., and other ancient iron-mines, worked in the time
of the Romans—Symmond’s Yat, and other military
earthworks—Domesday Book, and investment of this Forest in the
Crown—William I., and probable date of Free Miners’
Franchise—Castle of St. Briavel’s first built;
Giraldus—Flaxley Abbey founded—King John at Flaxley and St.
Briavel’s—The constables of St. Briavel’s and wardens of
the Forest—Date of the ruins of St. Briavel’s Castle—Iron
forges licensed by Henry III.—Perambulation of 1282, and first
“Justice seat”—Seventy-two “itinerant forges”
in the Forest—Date of Miners’ laws and
privileges—Perambulation of 1302—Edward I., grants in the
Forest—Newland Church founded—Free miners summoned to the
sieges of Berwick, &c.—Edward II., grants in the
Forest—Edward III., ditto—Richard II., ditto—Henry IV.,
ditto—Henry V., ditto—Henry VI., ditto—Severn barges
stopped by Foresters—Edward IV., and retreat hither of the Earl
Rivers and Sir J. Woodville—Edward VI. farmed the Forest to Sir A.
Kingston—Design of the Spaniards to destroy the Forest—Papers
from Sir J. Cæsar’s collection, viz. Sir J. Winter’s
negotiations relative to the iron-works, &c.—Blast furnaces
erected.

The district known as “the Forest of Dean” is situated
within that part of Gloucestershire which is bounded by the rivers Severn
and Wye.  Its name is of doubtful origin.  Was it so called from
its proximity to the town of Mitcheldean, or Dean Magna, mentioned in
Domesday Book, and which, agreeably to its name, is situated in a wooded
valley, the word “Dean,” or “Dene,” being Saxon,
and signifying a dale or den?—or do we accept the statement of
Giraldus, and some other writers, that the Forest of Dean obtained its name
from the Danes sheltering themselves in it, secured by its shades and p. 2thickets from
the retaliation of the neighbouring people, whose country they had
devastated?—Or, again, do we “fancy,” with Camden, that
“by cutting off a syllable it is derived from Arden, which word the
Gauls and Britons heretofore seemed to have used for a wood, since two very
great forests, the one in Gallia Belgica, the other amongst us in
Warwickshire, are called by one and the same name, Arden”?  This
latter suggestion Evelyn, in his ‘Sylva,’ accepts, in which he
is supported by the fact that the name of “Dean” is first met
with in William the Norman’s survey.

Probably the earliest trace of this locality being inhabited exists in
the Druidical rocks which are found on the high lands on the
Gloucestershire side of the Wye.  The chief of them is “the Buck
Stone,” so called perhaps from the deer which sheltered beneath it,
or else from its fancied resemblance to that animal when viewed from
certain distant spots.  It is a huge mass of rock poised on the very
crest of Staunton Hill, which being of a pyramidal form, and almost 1000
feet high, renders the stone on its summit visible in one direction as far
as Ross, nine miles off.  A careful examination of the structure of
the rock, and particularly of the character of its base, will show that its
position is natural.  But that the Druids had appropriated it to
sacrificial purposes, is evident from a rudely hollowed stone which lies
adjacent.  In shape “the Buck Stone” is almost flat on the
top, and four-sided, the north-east side measuring sixteen feet five
inches, the north seventeen feet, the south-west nine feet, and the south
side twelve feet.  The face of the rock on which it rests slopes
considerably, and the bearing point is only two feet across.  This
part may be an unbroken neck of rock, but apparently the entire block has
crushed down upon its base, as though, from having once formed the
extremity of the portion of cliff near, it had fallen away, and had
accidentally balanced itself in its present position. [2] 
The texture of “the Buck p. 3Stone” is similar to that of the slab of
rock on which it rests, commonly known as the old red sandstone
conglomerate of quartz pebbles (a stratum of which extends through the
whole district), exceedingly hard in most of its veins, but very perishable
in others; and hence perhaps the form and origin of this singular
object.

In addition to the above, there is a large mass of grit-stone, from nine
to ten feet high, standing in a field on the north side of the road leading
from Bream to St. Briavel’s, named “the Long
Stone.”  Another, called by the same name, and of similar
character, occurs on the north-east side of the Staunton and Coleford road;
p. 4but
nothing remarkable is known of either of them, only their weather-worn
appearance shows that they have been exposed to the action of the elements
during many centuries.

Next in order of time to the above remains are the ancient Iron-mines,
locally termed “Scowles,” [4] which were undoubtedly worked
when this island was occupied by the Romans.  This appears certain
from the coins, &c., which have been found deeply buried in the heaps
of iron cinders derived from the workings of these mines.  A highly
interesting MS. Dissertation, written about the year 1780 by Mr. Wyrrall,
on the ancient iron-works of the Forest, a subject on which he was well
informed, being a resident in the neighbourhood, is conclusive on this
head.  He states:—“Coins, fibula, and other things known
to be in use with that people (the Romans), have been frequently found in
the beds of cinders at certain places: this has occurred particularly at
the village of Whitchurch, between Ross and Monmouth, where large stacks of
cinders have been found, and some of them so deep in the earth, eight or
ten feet under the surface, as to demonstrate without other proof that they
must have lain there for a great number of ages.  The present writer
has had opportunities of seeing many of these coins and fibula, &c.,
which have been picked up by the workmen in getting the cinders at this
place, in his time; but especially one coin of Trajan, which he remembers
to be surprisingly perfect and fresh, considering the length of time it
must have been in the ground.  Another instance occurs to his
recollection of a little image of brass, about four inches long, which was
then found in the cinders at the same place, being a very elegant female
figure, in a dancing attitude, and evidently an antique by the
drapery.”

Numerous additional traces of the same people have been discovered in
this neighbourhood, viz., a Roman pavement, tesseræ, bricks, and
tiles at Whitchurch, p. 5already mentioned; remains of Ariconium, a town,
it seems, of blacksmiths, at Bollitree; a camp, bath, and tessellated
pavement at Lydney; and coins to a large amount, indicative of considerable
local prosperity, on the Coppet Woodhill, at Lydbrook, Perry Grove, and
Crabtree Hill—of Philip, Gallienus, Victorinus, Claudius Gothicus,
&c.

Crabtree Hill being situated near the centre of the Forest, renders the
discovery of Roman antiquities there especially interesting.  On 27th
August, 1839, a man who was employed to raise some stone in Crabtree Hill,
of which several heaps were lying on the surface, in turning over the stone
found about twenty-five Roman coins.  The next day, in another heap
about fifty yards distant, he found a broken jar or urn of baked clay, and
400 or 500 coins lying by it, the coins being for the most part those of
Claudius II., Gallienus, and Victorinus.  The spot is rather high
ground, but not a hill or commanding point, and there do not appear any
traces of a camp near it.  Some of the stones seemed burnt, as if the
building had been destroyed by fire.  There was no appearance of
mortar, but the stones had evidently been used in building, and part of the
foundation of a wall remained visible.  A silver coin of Aurelius was
likewise picked up.

Similar discoveries have been made in other places.  At
Seddlescombe, in Sussex, one of the earliest iron-making localities in the
kingdom, Mr. Wright, in his interesting work entitled ‘Wanderings of
an Antiquary,’ mentions several Roman coins, especially one of the
Emperor Diocletian, having been met with in a bed of iron cinders,
manifestly of great antiquity, since four large oaks stood upon its
surface.

An interval of a few hundred years brings us to the probable date of the
next class of antiquities, viz. the military earthworks yet traceable in
the neighbourhood.  They are four in number, commencing with the lines
of circumvallation which enclose the promontory of Beachley; next, the camp
and entrenchments on the high lands of Tidenham Chase; then, a camp near
the p.
6Bearse Common; and, as a termination to the chain, the triple dyke
defending Symmond’s Yat.  Some have regarded these remains as
forming the southern termination of Offa’s Dyke, which that sovereign
constructed about the year 760, to prevent the Welsh from invading his
kingdom of Mercia; but they are not sufficiently uniform or continuous to
warrant such a conclusion.  They seem rather to be connected with the
incident which the Chronicles of Florentius Vigorniensis relate as taking
place a.d. 912:—“The Pagan pirates,
who nearly nineteen years before had retired from Britain, approaching by
the province of Gaul, called Lydivinum, return with two leaders, Ohterus
and Hroaldus, to England, and, sailing round West Saxonia and Cornubia, at
length reach the mouth of the river Sabrina (Severn), and, without delay,
invade the northern lands of the British, and, exploring all the parts
adjoining the bank of the river, pillage most of them.  Cymelgeac, a
British bishop who occupied the plains of Yrcenefeld (Archenfield), was
likewise taken; and they, not a little rejoicing, carry him off to their
ships, whom, not long after, King Edward ransomed for forty pounds of
silver.  Soon after, the whole force, leaving their ships, return to
the aforesaid plains, and make their way for the sake of plunder; but
suddenly as many of the inhabitants as possible of the adjoining towns of
Hereford and Glevum (Gloucester) assemble, and give them battle. 
Hroaldus, the leader of the enemy, and his brother Ohterus, the other
leader, with a large part of the army, are slain.  The rest are put to
flight, and driven by the Christians into a certain fence (septum), where
they are at length besieged, until they give hostages, so that as fast as
possible they depart King Edward’s realm.”  Mr. Fryer, of
Coleford, ingeniously supposes that Symmond’s Rock was the scene of
the above contest, which may possibly be correct.

Edward the Confessor is stated in Domesday Book to have exempted the
Forest of Dean from taxation, with the object apparently of preserving it
from spoliation.  p. 7The exact terms used are, “has tras
c’ cessit rex E. quietas a geldo pro foresta custod,”
manifesting an interest in its protection on the part of the Crown, to
which no doubt it had now become annexed.  Probably in those early
days the King possessed the right to all lands not under cultivation or
already apportioned, just as the Sovereign of our own day exercises the
right in our colonial territories, and makes specific grants to private
individuals.  Thus, Mr. Rudder, in his ‘History of
Gloucestershire,’ remarks that “originally all the lands of the
subject are derived from the Crown, and our forests may have been made when
the ancient kings had the greater part in their own hands.” 
Agreeably with which principle, combined with the attractions which the
Forest of Dean possessed as a hunting ground, it was sometimes visited for
the sports of the chase by William the Conqueror, who in the year 1069 was
thus diverting himself when he received information that the Danes had
invaded Yorkshire and taken its chief city.  Roused to fury by these
tidings, he swore “by the splendour of the Almighty” that
“not one Northumbrian should escape his revenge;” an oath which
he put into prompt and terrible execution.  It seems not improbable
that upon one of these royal visits the miners of the Forest applied for
and obtained their “customes and franchises,” which, even in
the less remote days of Edward I., were granted, as the record of them
declares, “time out of minde.”  The demand which the
Conqueror made upon the citizens of Gloucester for thirty-six
“Icres” of iron yearly, each of which comprised ten bars, made
at their forges, six in number, wherewith to furnish his fleet with nails,
was procured doubtless from this Forest, for which impost the above-named
grant was possibly designed as a compensation.

The ‘Annals’ of Giraldus, relative to the reign of Henry I.,
inform us that the Castle of St. Briavel’s, or Brulails was now built
by Milo Fitz-Walter, with the design of confirming the royal authority in
the neighbourhood, and of checking the inroads of the Welsh; p. 8but, extensive as
its ruins still are, they seem to contain no trace of so early a
period.  The only vestige of that age is seen in the Parish Church,
which stands opposite the north entrance of the castle.  Henry created
Fitz-Walter Earl of Hereford, and committed the castle of St.
Briavel’s, and the district adjoining, to his care.  The
‘Itinerary’ of the same writer speaks of “the noble
Forest of Dean, by which Gloucester was amply supplied with iron and
venison.”  Tithes of the latter were given by this King to the
Abbey there.

In the fifth year of the succeeding reign of Stephen, by whom the gifts
just mentioned were confirmed, the Forest of Dean, that is, its royal
quitrents, were granted to Lucy, Milo Fitz-Walter’s third daughter,
upon her marrying Herbert Fitz-Herbert, the King’s chamberlain, and
progenitor to the present Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery.  So profuse
a gift on such an occasion may seem almost incredible; but its tenure, we
must remember, was precarious, the Forest itself being continually exposed
to danger by its proximity to the Welsh border.  Mahel was this
lady’s youngest brother, of whom Camden records that “the
judgment of God overtook him for his rapacious ways, inhumane cruelties,
and boundless avarice, always usurping other men’s rights.  For,
being courteously treated at the Castle of St. Briavel’s by Walter de
Clifford, the castle taking fire, he lost his life by the p. 9fall of a stone on his
head from the highest tower.”  It should be observed, however,
that, according to Sir R. C. Hoare, Camden is mistaken in placing the scene
of Mahel’s catastrophe in the Forest of Dean; Brendlais, or Bynllys,
as mentioned by Giraldus, being a small village on the road between
Hereford and Hay, where a stately tower marks the site of the ancient
castle of the Cliffords, in which most likely this tyrant lost his
life.

In this year also, a.d. 1140, the Abbey of
Flaxley was founded by Roger, the Earl of Hereford’s eldest son, by
whom it was partially endowed, and who named it “the Abbey of St.
Mary de Dene,” the site being formerly included in the precincts of
the Forest.  The institution of the Abbey was confirmed by Henry II.,
who further enriched it by granting permission to the monks to feed their
cattle, hogs, &c., in the Forest, repair their buildings with its
timber, and have an iron-forge there.  In course of years the
Fitz-Herbert interest in the Forest and Castle of St. Briavel’s,
passing through the families of Henry de Bohun and Bernard de Newmarch, was
released by the former to King John, who granted them at the close of his
reign to John de Monmouth.  The ‘Itinerary’ of this
monarch shows that he often visited the neighbourhood, no doubt for the
diversions of the chase, viz.:—

p.
10From this date Bigland, in his ‘County History,’
arranges nearly an unbroken succession of the constables of St.
Briavel’s Castle, and wardens of the Forest of Dean, viz.:—

Judging from the architectural character of the remains of St.
Briavel’s Castle, the whole of which seem to belong to the middle of
the thirteenth century, and closely to resemble in several features the
neighbouring castles of Chepstow and Goodrich, viz. in their entrances,
angular-headed arches, and three-cornered p. 11buttresses, the present
building was probably erected by John de Monmouth, at the cost of the
Crown, paid out of the increasing receipts which now accrued to it from the
charges levied upon the iron mines and forges at work in the
district.  The latter, being itinerant forges, were ordered to cease
until the King, Henry III., should command otherwise, which appears to have
led to the Chief Justice in Eyre directing that none should have an
iron-forge in the Forest without a special licence from the Sovereign.

By royal permission the Abbot of Flaxley possessed both an itinerant and
a stationary forge; one of the former kind also belonged to the men of
Cantelupe.  Henry Earl of Warwick had likewise forges in his woods at
Lydney, as well as others in the Forest, and p. 12these formed no doubt
but a small part of the whole number.  The dimensions of these forges
may be judged of by the two at Flaxley consuming more than two oaks weekly,
to the destruction of much timber, in lieu of which the King gave the Abbey
872 acres of woodland, which still forms part of the property at the
present day, under the name of “the Abbot’s Woods.”

During the long reign of Henry III. pasturage was granted to the men of
Rodley, who also in common with the King’s people might hunt the
boar.  Commonage was likewise given to the Abbot of Flaxley.  The
bailiwick of Dean Magna was granted to Walter Wither.  The men of Awre
were allowed, by custom, pasturage in the Forest; those of Rodley, estover,
dead and dry wood, with pannage and food for cattle as well.

The earliest of the various perambulations of the Forest, in the ensuing
reign of Edward I., was in the year 1282, and comprised the peninsula
formed by the Severn and Wye, proceeding north-east as far as Newent, and
north to Ross, as in fact it had always done.  It may be also observed
that about this period the Abbot of Gloucester purchased thirty-six acres
of land in Hope Maloysell, held by Gilbert and Julian Lepiatte, receiving
also Thomas Dunn’s gift of all his lands in the same parish. 
The most ancient of the justice seats for these parts sat the same year at
Gloucester Castle.  By its proceedings, some of the records of which
happily still exist, we learn that upwards of seventy-two
“Forgeæ errantes,” or moveable forges, were found
here; that the sum which the Crown charged for licensing them was at the
rate of seven shillings a year, viz. three shillings and six pence for six
months, or one shilling and nine pence a quarter; that a miner received one
penny, or the worth of it in ore, for each load brought to any of the
King’s ironworks; but if conveyed out of the Forest the penny was
paid to the Crown; and that in those cases where a forge was farmed,
forty-six shillings was charged. [12]  No less than fifty-nine
mines were let at p. 13this time to Henry de Chaworth, who had besides
forges at work in the Forest.

A careful examination of the oldest copy extant of ‘The
Miners’ Laws and Privileges,’ regarded, as Mr. Wyrrall tells
us, writing in the year 1780, “as the Magna Charta of our miners and
colliers,” incontrovertibly proves that it belongs to this
period.  It was first printed by William Cooper, at the Pelican in
Little Britain, 1687, from a manuscript copy preserved in the office of the
Deputy Gaveller, to which a postscript is added, “written out of a
parchm^t. roll, now in y^e hands of Richard Morse of
Clowerwall, 7 June, 1673, by Tho: Davies.”  Richard Morse was
then one of the deputy gavellers.  The date of the compilation has
heretofore been considered as determined by the wording of the short
introduction with which it is prefaced, commencing thus—“Bee
itt in minde and Remembrance what y^e Customes and Franchises
hath been that were granted tyme out of Minde, and after in tyme of the
Excellent and redoubted Prince, King Edward, unto the Miners of the Forrest
of Deane, and the Castle of St. Briavells,” &c., in which words
it will be observed that only the name of King Edward is mentioned, the
number not being added, although for some cause or other all modern copies
insert “the Third,” and hence the impression that the
collection was then formed; whereas the description given in the paragraph
immediately following, specifying what were then the limits of the Forest,
shows its date to be that of the first of the Edwards, since the bounds are
therein recorded as extending “between Chepstowe Bridge and
Gloucester Bridge, the halfe deale of Newent, Rosse Ash, Monmouth Bridge,
and soe farr into the Seassoames as the blast of a horne or the voice of a
man may bee heard.”  But these limits ceased to prevail soon
after the beginning of the fourteenth century, and consequently an earlier
date must be assigned for the above record than has commonly been given to
it.

p.
14The body of the document, originally, it would seem, unbroken, as
now printed is divided into forty-two paragraphs or sections, but expressed
in very rude and involved phraseology, confirming its antiquity, as still
further appears by the nature of the incidents which it contains.  It
specifies, first of all, the franchises of the mine, meaning its liberties
or privileges, as not to be trespassed against, and consisting apparently
in this, that every man who possessed it might, with the approval of the
King’s gaveller, dig for iron ore or coal where he pleased, and have
right of way for the carrying of it, although in certain cases
“forbids” to sell might be declared.  A third part of the
profits of the undertaking belonged to the King, whose gaveller called at
the works every Tuesday “between Mattens and Masse,” and
received one penny from each miner, the fellowship supplying the Crown with
twelve charges of ore per week at twelve pence, or three charges of coal at
one penny.  Timber was allowed for the use of the works above and
below ground.  Only such persons as had been born and were abiding in
the Forest were to “visit” the mines, in working which the
distance of a stone’s throw was always to be kept, and property in
them might be bequeathed.  The miners’ clothes and light are
mentioned, and the standard measure called “bellis,” to the
exclusion of carts and “waynes.”  It alludes to “the
court of the wood,” at the “speech” before the Verderers,
but more particularly to the court for debtors at St. Briavel’s
Castle, and to the mine court, as regulated by the constable, clerk, and
gaveller, and the miners’ jury of twelve, twenty-four, or
forty-eight, where all causes relating to the mines were to be heard. 
“Three hands,” or three witnesses, were required in evidence,
and the oath was taken with a stick of holly held in the hand.  The
miners of Mitchel Deane, Little Deane, and Ruer Deane are called
“beneath the wood.”

It also appears that at Carleon, Newport, Barkley, Monmouth, and
Trelleck, the manufacture of iron was carried on by “smiths,”
who were connected with smith-holders living in the Forest, and supplying
the ore, at p.
15each of which places it is remarkable that iron cinders have been
found.  The document concludes with the names of the forty-eight
miners by whom it was witnessed, confirmed, and sealed.

Such then were the mining privileges and regulations existing amongst
the operatives of the Forest at this period, a.d. 1300, which by their settled and methodical
character bear out the statement made in the preface to “the
Customes,” &c., that they had been then granted “time out
of mind,” and consequently were more ancient than the sieges of
Berwick, to which it appears many of the Forest miners and bowmen were
summoned, and perhaps received for services then rendered their peculiar
rights.

Another important characteristic of this reign (Edward I.) is the
unsettled state of the Forest boundaries, as indicated in the various
perambulations which were made about this time.  A record of that made
in 1302 is preserved in the Tower of London, whilst the register of the
perambulation performed by Letters Patent the year following, exists in
Walter Froucester’s transcript of it, in the possession of the Dean
and Chapter of Gloucester.  Both documents agree in setting forth the
same limits, no longer extending to Gloucester, Chepstow, and Monmouth, or
even including Hewelsfield, Alvington, Ailberton, Lydney, Purton, Box,
Rodley, Westbury, Blaisdon, Huntley, Longhope, Newent, Taynton, Tibberton,
Highnam, Churcham, and Bulley as formerly; but confining them, as nearly as
can now be determined, to the bounds laid down in the accompanying map of
the district.  It appears that these perambulations were made by a
numerous and important staff of officers, comprising four King’s
justices especially appointed, the chief justice in Eyre, nine foresters in
fee, four verderers, and twenty-four jurors—such was the importance
then attached to those acts.

There are some further items of information extant of this date, viz.
the ten bailiwicks of “Abbenhalle, Blakeney, Berse, Bicknoure, Great
Dean, Little Dean, Stauntene, Le Lee, and Bleyght’s Ballye, and p.
16Ruardean,” held respectively by Ralph de Abbenhalle, Walter
de Astune, William Wodeard, Cecilia de Michegros, the Constable of St.
Briavel’s Castle, Richard de la More, John de la Lee, Alexander
Bleyght, and Alexander de Byknore; Henry de Chaworth had fifty-nine mines,
and some forges; the timber wood of Kilcote was held by Bogo de Knoville;
William Bliss held 180 acres of assart, and seventeen acres of meadow land;
certain miners, named William de Abbensale, Walter and Elys Page, had been
found digging mine at Ardlonde belonging to the Abbot of Flaxley, who at
once removed them, and filled up the place.  The question was now also
raised as to the Crown possessing the right of conferring the tithes of the
“assarted” (rooted up) Forest lands, not being within the
bounds of any of the adjacent churches; when it was decided in the
affirmative, the King exercising the claim in favour of the church of
Newland, in consideration, probably, of the lordship of the manor being
held by him, and the whole being formerly comprised in the Forest.  A
considerable proportion of such of the existing encroachments as are
reputed the oldest pay tithes to Newland, a circumstance confirmatory of
their alleged antiquity. [16]

p.
17The records we possess of the ensuing reign of Edward II. afford
the interesting intelligence that on various public occasions the military
services of the Foresters were required, and even at places as distant as
Berwick-upon-Tweed, which, owing to its position as a border town, and the
contests then waging between the English and Scotch, was repeatedly lost
and won by both sides.  From the year 1174 to 1482 it changed owners
upwards of sixteen times.  The sieges to which our choice Foresters
were summoned appear to have been those of 1310, 1311, 1315, 1317, 1319,
and 1355.  On the first occasion the Constable of St. Briavel’s,
and Keeper of the Forest of Dean, was commanded to select one hundred
archers and twelve miners.  In the following year writs were addressed
to the Sheriff of Gloucester, directing that, out of fifty men to be chosen
from the county, the larger number should be from the Forest of Dean, and
urging expedition in sending them.  The next writ, issued four years
afterwards, was sent to the Sheriff of Herefordshire, and is entitled
“Concerning the Choice of Soldiers in the Forest of Dean,” and
orders ninety-six men of those parts to be provided.  Two years later
the Keeper of St. Briavel’s is directed to bring two hundred men to
Northallerton; and again, two years afterwards, he is to take twenty of the
strongest miners in his bailiwick to Newcastle-upon-Tyne; and a writ was
addressed to all mayors, sheriffs, bailiffs, &c., reciting the
aforesaid instructions, and commanding that assistance should be rendered
them whenever it was needed during their journey.  In connexion with
these incidents, it is stated by Guthrie, the historian, that Sir Edward
Manny bringing engineers out of the Forest of Dean, and Edward III.
investing the place with a prodigious army, the Scots capitulated. 
They were also ordered by the same King to join his forces at Portsmouth in
1346 and 1359.

From these facts we are justified in concluding that the population then
inhabiting the Forest were regarded as a brave and skilful race, not merely
in their own p.
18quarter of the kingdom, but also in the camp of its Kings. 
They were skilful with the bow from following the chase on the King’s
behalf, and were of course able sappers and miners from the nature of their
everyday occupations.  Indeed, the tradition now in vogue amongst the
Foresters, is, that their ancestors were made free miners in return for the
aforesaid services; but it has been shown that the franchises of the mine
date from an earlier period. [18]

The researches of the Rev. T. D. Fosbroke, as printed in his History of
the county, supply most of the following additional particulars of this
reign.  The Bishop of Llandaff, who already claimed the moiety of a
fishery at Bigswear on the Wye, to which the parish of Newland extends,
received a grant of the newly cleared Forest lands for founding a chantry
at the latter place.  Tithes to the amount of ten pounds from the
iron-mines in the Forest were given to that dignitary, but the Dean of
Hereford and the Canons, with the Rectors of St. Briavel’s and
Lydney, aided by their servants and others, violently carried them away,
the see of Hereford then comprising all these parts.  The vineyard of
Norton, together with certain wastes, were let to John de Witham and his
heir for 50s. 6d. per annum, provided two hundred acres of the adjoining
soil were brought into cultivation and enclosed at a certain rent, by which
all injury to the Crown would be avoided, Norton not being a vineyard, but
a “lacius” worth sixpence per annum.  So also William Jote
might hold one hundred acres, twenty lying in Michelerleye, and eighty in
Brakenford, and also the Prior of Lanthony two hundred and seventy acres,
upon paying twopence per annum.  The Abbot of Gloucester had leave to
cut wood in Birdewoode and Hope Mayloysell, without demand or view of the
Forester.  The men of Rodley Mead Forest were allowed to have firewood
and mast for their swine.  John de Abbenhall held a certain bailiwick
of the King by the service of guarding it with bows and arrows. 
Robert de Barrington held forty p. 19acres of waste near Malescoyte-wood. 
Ralph Hatheway was seized of forty acres in Holstone.  Bogo de
Knoville was seized of Kilcot-wood, and Henry de Chaworth had a forge in
the Forest.

By the sixth year of Edward III. (a.d. 1333)
the dispute between the Dean and Chapter of Hereford and the Bishop of
Llandaff, relative to the tithes of the iron-mines in the parish of
Newland, was settled in the Bishop’s favour, who also obtained the
great tithes and the presentation to the living, all of which still
continue attached to that see, and in connexion with which it may be
observed, that by far the larger part of the fabric of the church at
Newland exhibits the style of architecture which prevailed at that
period.  It is a large building, and the tower is particularly
fine.

Parliament now confirmed the perambulations made in 26th and 28th Edward
I., which reduced the bounds of the Forest to the limits which, with some
slight exceptions, remained in force till within the last twenty-five
years.  The ensuing items of information, taken from Mr.
Fosbroke’s valuable work on the county, apply to this period. 
Guy de Brien, to whom the Forest was farmed, obtained wages from the Crown
for the payment of four foresters, who were allowed the privilege of
cutting all underwood within the same from seven years to seven
years.  J. Flory held the bailiwick of the Lee, and John Preston that
of Blakeney.  Robert Sappy, warden of the Forest, petitioned
Parliament for some allowance to be made him, as, owing to the late
alienations of Crown property in favour of the monks of Tintern and the
Bishop of Llandaff, he no longer received the usual pay of one hundred
shillings per annum.  The Abbey of Gloucester had twigs granted to it
for the annual repairs of the weirs at Minsterworth and Durry; a similar
privilege was enjoyed by the lords of the manor of Rodley, provided the
twigs were fetched once a day with two horses, between the 14th of
September and the 3rd of May; heavy timber was also allowed for the same
purpose.  John Juge succeeded to the bailiwick of the Lee, but was
unlawfully deprived p. 20of it by John Talbot, who held the castle on
Penyard as well as Goodrich.  William de Staunton held the bailiwick
there, and Reginald Abbenhall the woods.  Walter Ivor held that at
Blakeney, after Roger Flotman.  The Abbot of Gloucester had ninety
acres of land in Walmore, at eight pence an acre rent, for cultivation, but
not for commonage.  John Joice and his heirs had a grant of 116 acres
in several parcels in the Forest, at the yearly rent of nineteen shillings
and four pence.

In the reign of Richard II. John Wolton obtained the grant for life of a
place called Stowe.  It was found that a monk from the convent of
Grace Dieu was celebrating mass in the Forest for the souls of the King,
his successors, and ancestors, holding two carucates of land, ten acres of
meadow, and six acres of wood, a fact which may account for the name of
“Church Hill,” at Park End.  Thomas Hatheway was a chief
forester.  A bailiwick in the Forest, with lands in Lee-Walton and Lee
in Herefordshire, were held in tail, remainder to Richard Curle, by Thomas
de Brugg and Elizabeth his wife.  The Castle of St. Briavel’s
and the Forest were given in special tail to the Duke of Gloucester, who
was afterwards empowered by Parliament to constitute justices and other
officers then usually attached to such properties.

In the time of Henry IV. William Warwyn held a certain bailiwick here by
the service of being a forester in fee.  Another office called
“the forester’s wyke” was filled by Henry de Aure. 
In the succeeding reign this Forest was held in capite as the King’s
heir, by John Duke of Bedford, under a grant made by Henry IV.

Whilst the throne was occupied by Henry VI. we have chiefly to notice
the complaint, which the traders of Tewkesbury made to the Government, that
“their boats and trowes conveying all manner of merchandise down the
Severn to Bristol, &c.,” had been stopped at the coast of the
Forest by great multitudes of the common people dwelling thereabouts, who
seized their vessels, carried away the corn, threatened their lives if they
p.
21resisted, and forbad any complaint being made, on their coming
that way again.  The petition caused letters of privy seal to be
proclaimed in those parts to the effect that “no man of the said
Forest should be so hardy to inquiet or disturb the people passing the said
river with merchandise, upon pain of treason.”  But the account
proceeds to say that “the said trespassers came to the said river
with greater routs and riots than ever they did before, there despoiling at
divers times eight trowes of wheat, rye, flour, and divers other goods and
chattels, and the men of the same cast overboard, and divers of them
drowned, and the hawsers of the same trowes cut away, and mainstrung the
owners of the said goods, who should not be so hardy as to cause any manner
of victuals to be carried any more by the same stream, much or little, for
lord or for lady, as they would hew their boats all to pieces if they did
so.”  More stringent measures were therefore evidently
necessary, and in 1429 the Parliament passed an act, enforcing a
restoration of the plunder, and amends for the injury done, within fifteen
days, and the offenders to be imprisoned, or else the Statute of Winchester
would be enforced against them.

The singular perquisite of a bushel of coal, worth twenty pence, from
each pit, at the end of every six weeks, was now attached to the office of
“capital forester of all the foresters,” held at this period by
Robert Greyndour.  The King’s lands, manors, castles, and other
possessions in this Forest, were also granted to Henry Duke of Warwick, for
one hundred pounds annual rental.

After the accession of Edward IV., and his unpopular marriage with
Elizabeth Woodville, this Forest was the spot to which, upon the defeat at
Edgecote (26th July, 1469), her father the Earl Rivers and her brother Sir
John Woodville fled, where they were recaptured and carried to Northampton,
their place of execution.  A sergeantry, called woodward of the Lee
Baile, was then held by John Throckmorton, Esq.

In the reign of Henry VIII. the office of Bleysbale and forestership of
fee was filled by William Alberton.  p. 22A rental of sixty-five
shillings and sixpence was paid to the Crown for certain lands in the
Forest held by the priory of Monmouth; and others, called Cley-pitts,
Litterfield, and Hill Hardwell, paid two shillings and four pence. 
Letters patent granted the custody of the Gablewood to Henry Bream.

Edward VI. farmed the Forest to Sir Anthony Kingston.  How far the
Forest population were interested in the stirring events of the
Reformation, we are, unfortunately, left to conjecture; but the suppression
of the adjacent Abbeys of Tintern and Flaxley, with their large
possessions, must have brought the changes of the period visibly home to
them.

The reign of Elizabeth brings us to the date of an incident more
generally notorious perhaps than any other in the history of Dean Forest,
viz. its intended destruction by the Spanish Armada.  Evelyn in his
‘Sylva’ thus mentions it:—“I have heard that in the
great expedition of 1588 it was expressly enjoined the Spanish Armada that
if, when landed, they should not be able to subdue our nation and make good
their conquest, they should yet be sure not to leave a tree standing in the
Forest of Dean.”  Were it not that he particularly states that
he had “heard” the report, we should conclude that he obtained
his information from Fuller’s ‘Worthies,’ published two
years previously, where it is mentioned with this only difference, that
“a Spanish ambassador was to get it done by private practices and
cunning contrivances.”  Fuller had probably read this account in
‘Samuel Hartlib, his Legacy of Husbandry,’ published in 1655,
where, speaking of the deficiency of woods at that time, he
writes—“the State hath done very well to pull down divers
iron-works in the Forest of Dean, that the timber might be preserved for
shipping, which is accounted the toughest in England, and, when it is dry,
as hard as iron.  The common people did use to say that in Queen
Elizabeth’s days the Spaniards sent an ambassador purposely to get
this wood destroyed.”

As Mr. Evelyn writes that he “heard” what he states p. 23of the
matter, Mr. Secretary Pepys was probably his informant, who was told it by
his friend Sir John Winter, who again heard it from his grandfather, Sir
William Winter, vice-admiral of Elizabeth’s fleet, but kinsman to
Thomas Winter of Huddington, who at the close of this reign was constantly
aiding the Spanish Romanists in their intrigues here, and eventually took
part in the Gunpowder Plot.  Such tradition is highly to the credit of
the Forest timber of those days, if not to the iron as well.  Both
must have been renowned for supplying an important portion of the materials
used in the Royal dockyards, which were at this time much enlarged, an
increase of the navy being found necessary; whilst the stock of timber then
standing in different parts of the kingdom was judged so insufficient for
the wants of the Government, that recent acts of the legislature had
directed that “twelve standils or storers likely to become timber
should be left on every acre of wood or underwood that was felled at or
under twenty-four years’ growth,” and prohibited the
“turning woodland into tillage,” and required that,
“whenever any wood was cut, it must be immediately enclosed, and the
young spring thereof protected for seven years.”  Moreover, no
trees upwards of a foot in the square were to be converted into charcoal
for making iron.

The returns from Sir Julius Cæsar’s collection preserved in
the Lansdowne MSS. recognise the above regulations, as well as the market
for wood created by the Forest iron-works, now greatly enlarged; they
possess considerable interest, and will be found in Appendix No. I.

p.
24CHAPTER II.
a.d. 1612–1663.

Grants in the Forest to Earl of
Pembroke—Mining restricted to the Foresters—Iron cinders of old
workings re-smelted in the new furnaces—Last justice seat held in
1635, extending the limits of the Forest to those of Edward I.—Grant
to E. Terringham—Forest surveyed in 1635—Sale of the woods to
Sir J. Winter—Disturbances of the Civil War at Coleford, Highmeadow,
Ruerdean—Adventures of Sir J. Winter at Westbury, Little Dean,
Newnham, Lydney—Events on the north side of the
Forest—Incidents of the Protectorate, riots and devastations of the
Forest—Sir J. Winter’s patent restored—Effects of a great
storm—Survey of the Forest in 1662—Mr. J. Pepys and Sir J.
Winter on the Forest—The latter resumes his
fellings—Inhabitants suggest replanting and enclosing the
Forest—Act of 20 Charles II., c. 3—Sir J. Winter’s
licence confirmed.

On the 17th of February, 1612, William Earl of Pembroke obtained a grant
“of 12,000 cords of wood yearly for twenty-one years at 4s. per cord,
being £2400, and reserving a rent besides of £33 6s. 8d. per
annum,” with “liberty to dig for and take within any part of
the said Forest, or the precincts thereof, such and so much mine ore,
cinders, earth, sand, stone, breaks, moss, sea coal, and marle, as should
be necessary for carrying on the iron-works let to him, or which he should
erect; no person or persons whatsoever other than the said Earl to be
permitted during the said term to take or carry out of the said Forest any
wood, timber, mine ore, or cinders, without consent of the said Earl,
except such timber as should be used for his Majesty’s
shipping.”  The Earl obtained, on the 13th June of the same
year, a grant of “the lordship, manor, town, and castle of St.
Briavel’s, and all the Forest of Dean with the appurtenances, and all
lands, mines, and quarries belonging thereto, except all great trees, p. 25wood, and
underwood, to hold for forty years at the yearly rent of £83 18s.
4d., and an increase rent of £3 8d.”

It appears that, soon after these leases were granted, the miners,
hitherto accustomed to dig for ore in the Forest, resumed their work
without the Earl’s consent, and an information was filed against some
of them by the Attorney-General.  Upon this, an order, dated 28th
January, 1613, was made by the Court, “that those miners, and such
others as had been accustomed to dig ore in the Forest, upon the humble
submission for their offences, and acknowledgment that the soil was the
King’s, and that they had no interest therein, and upon their motion
by counsel that they were poor, and had no other means of support, and
praying to be continued in their employment, should be permitted, out of
charity and grace, and not of right, to dig for mine ore and
cinders, to be carried to his Majesty’s iron-works, and not to any
other place, at the accustomed rates; if the farmers of the King’s
iron-works should refuse to give those rates which, as well as the number
of diggers, were to be ascertained by Commissioners to be named by the
Court, that then they might sell the ore to others; but no new diggers were
to be allowed, but only such poor men as were inhabitants of the said
Forest.”  It was not intended that this order should always
continue in force, but only until such time as the cause brought in the
name of the foresters should be heard and determined.  This, however,
appears never to have been done, as no decree was obtained, probably from
the miners considering it best to accept the terms offered, regarding the
above order as a record in their favour, since it provided that “no
new diggers were to be allowed, but only such poor men as were inhabitants
of the said Forest;” a view, it may be remarked, agreeing with that
which the free miners took in their memorial of 1833. [25]

The cinders adverted to were the ashes or refuse left by a former race
of iron manufacturers, whose skill p. 26was too limited to
effect more than the separation of a portion of the metal, but which the
improved methods, now introduced into the district, turned to a good
account.  A return made in 1617, by Sir William Coke, &c., to a
commission issued out of the Exchequer, to inquire concerning the Forest of
Dean, states that “His Majesty, since the erecting the iron-works,
had received a greater revenue than formerly.”  Their structure
is described in “The Booke of Survey of the Forest of Dean
Ironwork,” dated 1635, from which it appears that the stone body of
the furnace now adopted was usually about twenty-two feet square, the blast
being kept up by a water-wheel not less than twenty-two feet in diameter,
acting upon two pairs of bellows measuring eighteen feet by four, and kept
in blast for several months together.  Such structures existed at
Cannope, Park End, Sowdley, and Lydbrook.  Besides which, there were
forges, comprising chafferies and fineries, at Park End, Whitecroft,
Bradley, Sowdley, and Lydbrook.  Messrs. Harris and Chaloner, &c.,
as farmers to the Crown, held all of them on lease.

The last justice seat in Eyre, or Supreme Court of Judicature for the
royal forests, was held the same year as the above (1635) at Gloucester
Castle before Henry Earl of Holland, on which occasion “the matter
concerning the perambulation of this Forest was solemnly debated,”
the counsel for the Crown producing the bounds thereof as settled by the
12th of Henry III. and 10th Edward I., with the view of obtaining its
re-extension to Gloucester, Monmouth, and Chepstow.  On the other
hand, the counsel for the City of Gloucester, &c., brought forward the
perambulations made 26th and 28th Edward I., confirmed by Letters Patent
29th Edward I., and by an Act of 10th Edward III.  The Grand Jury, not
being able to agree to their verdict on that day, which was a Saturday,
desired further time in a matter of such weight; and on the Monday
following decided, that the more extensive limits, comprising seventeen
additional villages, were the true ones.  But “their inhabitants
being fearful that they would be p. 27questioned for many things done contrary to the
Forest Laws, the King’s Counsel, in regard of their being but new
brought in, and long usage, thought it not fitt to proceed with any of them
at that justice seat.”  Amongst some 120 claims to rights and
privileges of various kinds preserved in the Office of Public Records, [27] and
put in at the same Court, was one of Philip Earl of Pembroke to be
Constable of the Castle of St. Briavel’s and Warden of the Forest,
under a grant from the King, and, as such, Chief Judge of the Mine Law
Court.

In a.d. 1637 a grant was made to Edward
Terringham of “all the mines of coal and quarries of grindstone
within the Forest of Dean, and in all places within the limits and
perambulations thereof, as well those within his Majesty’s demesne
lands, and the waste and soil there, as also all such as lay within the
lands of any of his Majesty’s subjects within the perambulation of
the said Forest, to his Majesty reserved, or lawfully belonging, to hold
for thirty-one years, at the yearly rent of £30.”

The next year (1638) is marked by the first effort which the Crown seems
to have made to renew the crops of timber in the Forest, rendered necessary
by the report that, on surveying it, a supply of no more than 105,557
trees, containing 61,928 tons of timber, and 153,209 cords of wood, of
which only 14,350 loads were fit for shipbuilding, was found, as “the
trees were generally decayed, and passed their full groath.” 
Accordingly, under the direction of Sir Baynham Throckmorton, 16,000 or
17,000 acres were ordered to be taken in, “leaving fit and convenient
highways in and through the same.”  After sundry meetings, the
commoners consented thereunto, few or none objecting, in consideration of
4000 acres set apart for their use on the different sides of the Forest, as
follows:—On the side next Lydney and Awre, 550 acres; towards
Ruerdean and Lydbrook, 350 acres; near to St. Briavel’s, 500 acres;
towards Little Dean, Flaxley, Abenhall, and Mitcheldean, p. 28and the Lea, 876 acres;
in Abbot’s Wood, 76 acres; on the side nearest to Newland and the
villages of Breme, Clearwell, and Coleford, 900 acres; towards Newland, 174
acres; next to Bicknor, 350 acres; and towards Rodley and Northwood, 100
acres.  The Lea Bailey, containing the best timber, was not included,
but left open.  The proportion observed in the size of these common
lands is probably indicative of the way in which the population surrounding
the Forest was distributed.  Traces of the bounds of some of these
allotments may yet be made out, by the remains of the ditches and banks
with which they were fenced.

Such a scheme, if judiciously carried out, would have done much to
secure the object in view, only it was connected unhappily with the entire
sale made under the date of 20th February, 1640 (15th Charles I.), to Sir
John Winter, of all the mines, minerals, and stone-quarries within the
limits of the Forest, to work and use the same, together with all timber,
trees, woods, underwood growing in any part thereof, in consideration of
£10,000, and the yearly sum of £16,000 for six years, and of a
fee farm rent of £1950 12s. 6d. for ever.  This bargain was
equivalent to selling the Forest altogether, and the inhabitants of the
district, being greatly dissatisfied, took advantage of the approaching
civil distractions to throw down the fences which Sir J. Winter had already
begun to make.

Of those distractions, the first that occurred in this part of the
county took place on the 20th February, 1643.  Clarendon and Corbet
record, that on this day Lord Herbert, the Earl of Worcester’s eldest
son, and the King’s Lieutenant-General of South Wales, marched
through Coleford and the Forest of Dean for Gloucester, at the head of an
army of 500 horse and 1500 foot, the outfit and preparation of which is
stated to have cost £60,000.  At Coleford their progress was
impeded by a troop of Parliamentarians under Colonel Berrowe, aided by a
disorderly rabble of country people.  An affray ensued, during which
the old market-house was burnt, and Major-General Lawley, who commanded the
p. 29foot,
“a bold and sprightly man,” with two other officers, were shot
dead from a window, although not one common soldier was hurt.  Colonel
Brett was then put in command of the foot, Lord John Somerset continuing at
the head of the horse.  They forced a passage through, after capturing
Lieutenant-Colonel Winter, together with some inferior officers and common
soldiers, and so, putting the rest to flight, marched without further
molestation for Gloucester.

In the April following, Sir William Waller, retreating from Monmouth
towards Gloucester through the Forest, narrowly escaped capture by Prince
Maurice, who was at hand to intercept him with a considerable force. 
Alluding many years afterwards to this adventure, he
writes:—“Upon my march that night through the Forest of Dean,
it happened through the sleepiness of an officer, that the main body was
separated from the fore troope with which I marched, so that I was fain to
make an halt for above half an hour, within little more than a mile of the
Prince’s head-quarter, in broad daylight; the allarme taken, and not
120 horse with me.  Nevertheless, itt pleased God in his infinite
mercy to direct the rest of my troopes to me; and, under the conduct of his
providence, to grant me a safe and honorable retreat to Gloucester, in
despight of the enemy, who charged me in the reare, with more loss to
himself than to me.”

But the individual who figured most prominently in these parts at this
eventful period was the ardent royalist Sir John Winter.  His case is
thus quaintly stated by Sanderson:—“From the pen, as secretary
to the Queen, he was put to the pike, and did his business very handsomely,
for which he found the enmity of the Parliament ever after;” so that
Corbet, one of their devoted adherents, designates him “a
plague,” and his house of White Cross, near Lydney, “a
den.”  This place he had been secretly strengthening against
attack for some time, storing it with arms and ammunition, and collecting
soldiers; but he did not openly declare himself until the siege of
Gloucester was raised, p. 30on 5th September, 1643.  During the
ensuing winter, and on to the 7th of May following, Corbet speaks of him as
“referring all his industry to his own house,” described as
being “in the heart of the Forest,” of which, says the same
writer, he had “obtained the entire command,” and from whence
he succeeded in making constant attacks upon the adjoining small
Parliamentary garrisons of Huntley and Westbury, who were treacherously
sold to him by Captain Thomas Davis, and he was thus enabled to advance
almost to Gloucester.  Upon the day just named, in the year 1644, the
following affray happened at Westbury, occasioned by Colonel Massy’s
attempt to recover it for the Parliament.  Corbet
says:—“Here the enemy held the church, and a strong
house” (understood to be Mr. Colchester’s)
“adjoining.”  “The Governor (Colonel Massy),
observing a place not flanked, fell-up that way with the forlorne hope, and
secured them from the danger of shot.  The men got stooles and ladders
to the windowes, where they stood safe, cast in granadoes, and fired them
out of the church.  Having gained the church, he quickly beat them out
of their workes, and possest himself of the house, where he took about four
score prisoners, slaying twenty others, without the losse of a
man.”

Upon the same day a similar but more fatal encounter took place at
Littledean, a village situated under the east slopes of the Forest hills,
and as yet occupied for the King.  “Here,” says Corbet,
“the governor’s troop of horse found the enemy stragling in the
towne, and, upon the discovery of their approach, shuffling towards the
garrison, which the troopers observing, alighted and ran together with them
into the house, where they tooke about 20 men.  Neere unto which
guard, Lieutenant-Colonel Congrave, Governor of Newnham, and one Captain
Wigmore, with a few private souldiers, were surrounded in some houses by
the residue of our horse.  These had accepted quarter, ready to render
themselves, when one of their company from the house kils a trooper, which
so enraged the rest, that p. 31they broke in upon them, and put them all to
the sword: in which accident, this passage was not to be forgotten that
expressed in one place an extreame contrariety in the spirits of men under
the stroke of death: Congrave died with these words, ‘Lord receive my
soule!’ and Wigmore cryed nothing but ‘Dam me more, dam me
more!’ desperately requiring the last stroke, as enraged at divine
revenge.”  The spot where these officers fell is considered to
have been at Dean Hall, in the dining-room, near the fireplace.

Corbet next goes on to recite how Colonel Massy followed up these
exploits by marching to Newnham the next day, “where,” says he,
“a strong party of Sir John Winter’s forces kept garrison in
the church, and the fort adjoining,” (on a spot which has been turned
lately into public pleasure grounds,) “of considerable strength, who
at that instant were much daunted and distracted by the losse of Congrave,
their governor.  Our men were possest of the town without opposition,
and recovered the houses, by which they got nere the workes.  The
Governour (Massy) commanded a blind of faggots to be made athwart the
street, drew up two pieces of ordnance within pistoll shot, and observing a
place not well flanked where he might lead up his men to the best
advantage, himself marched before them, and found that part of the work
fortified with double pallisadoes; the souldiers being provided with sawes
to cut them down, and having drawn them close within a dead angle, and
secure from their shot, and drawing the rest of his forces for a storme,
the enemy forthwith desires a parley, and to speake with the governour,
which he refused, and commanded a sudden surrender.  In this interim
some of the enemy jumpt over the workes, and so our men broke in upon the
rest, who ranne from the out worke into the churche, hoping to cleare the
mount which we had gained.  But our men were too nimble, who had no
sooner entred the mount, but rushed upon them before they could reach home,
and p.
32tumbled into the church altogether.  Then they cryed for
quarter, when, in the very point of victory, a disaster was like to befall
us: a barrell of gunpowder was fired in the church, undoubtedly of set
purpose, and was conceived to be done by one Tipper, a most virulent
Papist, and Sir John Winter’s servant, despairing withall of his
redemption, being a prisoner before, and having falsified his
engagement.  The powder-blast blew many out of the church, and sorely
singed a greater number, but killed none.  The souldiers, enraged,
fell upon them, and in the heate of blood slew neere 20, and amongst others
this Tipper.  All the rest had quarter for their lives (save one
Captaine Butler, an Irish rebell, who was knocked down by a common
souldier), and an 100 prisoners taken.  The service was performed
without the losse of a man on our side.”

Emboldened to proceed, and anxious to take advantage of Sir John
Winter’s absence at Coleford, Colonel Massy marched on forthwith to
Lydney House.  He did not attack it, however, so well was it fortified
and provided, and courageously defended, by Lady Winter, who, upon being
pressed to deliver, answered—

“Sir,—Mr. Winter’s unalterable allegiance to his King
and Sovereign, and his particular interest to this place, hath by his
Majesty’s commission put it into this condition, which cannot be
pernicious to any but to such as oppose the one and invade the other;
wherefore rest assured that in these relations we are, by God’s
assistance, resolved to maintain it, all extremities notwithstanding. 
Thus much in Mr. Winter’s absence you shall receive from

“Mary
Winter.”

To inconvenience so daring a lady would be contrary to the
Colonel’s gallantry, and he drew off to the adjoining hills towards
the Forest, the better to meet Sir John Winter and Colonel Mynne, who were
reported to be returning with a considerable strength of horse, assisted
p. 33by
the Lord Herbert’s forces.  But the Royalists not appearing,
Massy contented himself with setting fire to Sir John’s iron-mills
and furnaces, and in the evening marched back to Gloucester.

Lydney House and Berkeley Castle remained the last strongholds of the
Royalists in the county of Gloucester.  The restless proprietor of the
former was perpetually engaged in attempts to restore the King’s
declining cause, and in particular to reduce the inhabitants of the Forest,
which was an object of some importance, as their iron-works, &c.,
afforded supplies to Bristol, then besieged by the Parliament forces. 
The foresters had declined in their loyalty, through Sir John
Winter’s occupying their woods, from which his enclosures excluded
them.  Accordingly his name is rarely absent from the accounts given
by contemporary writers, of efforts made in this neighbourhood for the
Crown.  Most likely he assisted Prince Rupert in his first attempt
made in the month of September, 1644, to fortify and establish a permanent
guard on the promontory at Beachley, but from which they were quickly
dislodged by Massy.  We know he was present when the same effort was
renewed a month later, and had a second time to be relinquished, Sir John
Winter only effecting his escape by hard riding, and making a desperate
descent upon the river Wye, by which he was only just enabled to reach the
Prince’s ships lying at its mouth.

So favourable an opportunity as this defeat gave for the capture of
Lydney House was not to be lost, and it was invested forthwith. 
Timely aid was however rendered about the 2nd of April, 1645, by the
arrival of Prince Maurice with a force of 2,000 horse and 1,500 foot, who,
as they marched towards it from Hereford, took advantage of the occasion to
lay waste the Forest, as a retribution on the inhabitants for having
deserted the King’s cause.  Corbet says that “they
plundered the houses to the bare walls, driving all the cattell, seizing
upon the persons of men, and sending them captives to Monmouth and
Chepstow, except such as escaped to us by p. 34flight, as many did
with their armes, and some few that saved themselves in woods and mine
pitts.”  The same authority adds that “the King’s
forces returned a second time into the Forest, and took the gleanings of
the former harvest.”  In the course of the month of May the
royalists retired, and Sir John Winter, resolving that his house should
never harbour his enemies, burnt it to the ground.  He then joined the
King, by whom he was presently despatched with letters to the Queen, in
France, and mentioning him in these terms—“This bearer, Sir
John Winter, as thy knowledge of him makes it needlesse to recommend him to
thee, soe I should injure him if I did not beare him the true witnesse of
having served me with as much fidelity and courage as any, not without much
good successe; though some crosse accydents of late hath made him (not
without reason) desire to waite upon thee, it being needfull that I should
give him this testimony, least his journey to thee be
misinterpreted.”

The estate which Sir John Winter thus vacated in this neighbourhood was
soon after assigned to his opponent by the House of Commons, who ordered on
the 29th of September, 1645, “that Major-General Massy, in
consideration of his good and faithful service which he hath done for the
kingdom, shall have allowed him the estate of Sir John Winter (who is a
delinquent to the Parliament) in the Forest of Dean; all his iron-mills,
and the woods (timber trees only excepted not to be felled), with all the
profits belonging to them; and ordered that an order at once should be
brought into the House to that purpose.”  Eventually, however,
Sir John Winter recovered his property, through the influence probably of
the Lords in Parliament, who appear to have favoured him.  On his
return to this country he nevertheless seems to have been imprisoned, for
on the 7th of September, 1652, we find him liberated from the Tower, upon
bail for three months, on account of sickness; a term of liberty which was
enlarged upon the 7th of December, on the same security, p. 35to three months longer,
with permission to go where he pleased within twenty miles of London. 
On the 17th of the same month he was remanded back to the Tower.

Evelyn tells us that at this time Sir John Winter amused himself with a
project for charring coal.  “July 11th, 1656.—Came home by
Greenwich Ferry, where I saw Sir John Winter’s new project of
charring sea-coale, to burne out the sulphure and render it sweete. 
He did it by burning the coals in such earthen pots as the glasse-men mealt
their mettal, so firing them without consuming them, using a barr of yron
in each crucible or pot, which barr has a hook at one end, that so the
coales being mealted in a furnace w^th other crude sea-coales
under them, may be drawn out of the potts sticking to the yron, whence they
are beaten off in greate halfe-exhausted cinders, which being rekindled
make a cleare pleasant chamber fire, deprived of their sulphur and arsenic
malignity.  What successe it may have, time will discover.”

Reverting to Sir John Winter’s retreat from Lydney, it may be
remarked that, with his retirement from the Forest district, its south side
became quiet; not so its north, for there the following incidents
occurred.  The first of them arose from Colonel Massy’s efforts
to retake Monmouth, which he strove to accomplish by feigning a sudden
retreat from before it towards Gloucester, as though he had received
unfavourable tidings.  With this view he and his forces drew off some
three miles into the thickets of the Forest, sending out scouts at the same
time to prevent his being surprised by the enemy.  Intelligence of
their disappearance being reported within the garrison to
Lieutenant-Colonel Kyrle, who was in the secret, he speedily set out in
pursuit, but was himself surprised with a troop of thirty horse, near
midnight, by Massy, in Mr. Hall’s house, at High-Meadow.  A
combination of their forces being effected, they returned to Monmouth, and
with mutual aid, favoured by a dark and rainy night, recaptured p. 36the town, much
to the joy of the Colonel and his friends.  Kyrle, an ancestor of
“the Man of Ross,” lived at Walford, where he was buried, and
where his helmet is still preserved.

The capture of Monmouth proved to be only temporary, as the place was
again lost, thus exposing that side of the Forest to the incursions of the
Cavalier troops.  To check these invasions, the garrison of
High-Meadow was carefully kept up.  Ruerdean, six miles to the west,
and well situated for guarding the Forest on the north, was made another
military post, being intended to stop plunderers from the King’s
garrison at Goodrich, and where there is a spot yet called
“Shoot-Hill,” adjoining which many cannon-balls have been
found.  Probably the site of the old castle at Bicknor was also
converted into an out-station, guarding the two parallel valleys which
there pass up towards the middle of the Forest from the Wye.  This
station would likewise assist, from its relative position, in transmitting
signals between Ruerdean and High-Meadow, or even from Gloucester, if the
Beacon, which formerly stood on the crest of Edge Hill, were included in
the range.  Such posts would be serviceable to the Parliamentary
Colonel Birch, when engaged in the siege of Goodrich Castle, not more than
four miles north of Ruerdean; for his supplies would be drawn chiefly from
the Forest, as indeed appears from a letter dated 4th July, 1646, in which
he says, “We have supplies of shells for our granadoes from the
Forest of Dean.”

Several traditions of violence and blood, referring no doubt to this
period, are preserved by the inhabitants of these parts of the Forest, one
of whom reports an act of cruelty perpetrated on a householder living in
the little hamlet of Drybrook, who was struck down, and his eyes knocked
out, for refusing to give up a flitch of bacon to a foraging party. 
Another legend, relative to the same neighbourhood, preserves the memory of
a skirmish called “Edge Hill’s Fight,” from the spot on
which it occurred.  It is true that some of the neighbouring foresters
suppose it to be “the p. 37Great Fight mentioned in the almanack,”
an idea which might perhaps have given rise to the story, were it not that
a small stream which descends from the place in question bears the name of
“Gore Brook,” from the human blood which on that occasion
stained its waters.

The ensuing years of the Protectorate, judging from the frequent notices
in the Parliamentary Journals to that effect, appear to have been
destructive to the timber of the Forest rather than to life or
property.  Frequent orders were issued by the Committee of the House
of Commons charged with the care of the Forest of Dean, forbidding the
felling of any more trees whatever, and ordering that any which had been
cut down should be sold for the benefit of the Government.  The
gentlemen of the county were invited to assist herein, both by viewing any
timber which had been felled, and also by causing any of it which they
judged fit to be reserved for shipping to be brought into the stores of the
Navy.  Sir J. Winter asserts that during the time of the Commonwealth
above 40,000 trees were cut down by order of the House of Commons.

In 1650 the above-named Committee ordered all the iron-works to be
suppressed and demolished.  Six years later a Bill was brought in and
passed, signed by the Protector Richard, for mitigating the rigour of the
Forest Laws, and for preserving the timber, which all contemporary
testimony on the subject states to have gone miserably to wreck during the
civil wars.  On the 11th of May, 1659, Colonel White reported to the
House of Commons, that “upon the 3rd day of this instant month divers
rude people in tumultuous way, in the Forest of Dean, did break down the
fences, and cut and carry away the gates of certain coppices enclosed for
preservation of timber, turned in their cattle, and set divers places of
the said Forest on fire, to the great destruction of the young growing
wood.”  This riot was probably excited by the efforts which the
Government had recently made for the re-afforesting of 18,000 acres; to
effect which 400 cabins of poor people, p. 38living upon the waste,
and destroying the wood and timber, were thrown down.

It would be interesting to know what was the disposition of the
inhabitants of the Forest, and of the neighbourhood generally, towards the
exiled Sovereign, as the way to his restoration began to open out.  A
slight clue is afforded by Captain Titus’s letter, reporting to the
King that “he had been in the Forest of Dean, and had found the
gentlemen very forward; that several of them had engaged for considerable
numbers.”

The return of Charles at once restored Sir John Winter to liberty, and
to the benefits of the Patent which the late King had granted him, as also
to his place as Secretary and Chancellor to the Queen Dowager.  He
proceeded to act upon the former, by repairing his enclosures, in spite of
determined opposition from the neighbouring inhabitants, who strongly
represented to the Government that the continuance of that grant would
injure both it and the public.  Sir Charles Harbord, under date 28th
of December, 1661, thus describes the way in which the above complaint was
preferred:—“His Majesty hath been pleased to be present with my
Lord Chancellor, and Lord Treasurer, &c., at the hearing of this
business, and hath given order that a Commission shall be forthwith issued
out of the Exchequer to inquire into the state of the Forest; intending,
upon the return of the said Commission, to acquaint the Parliament with the
true state of the business; and to recommend it to their wisdom to provide
that the said Forest may be restored to his Majesty’s demesne, and
re-afforested, and improved by enclosures for a future supply of wood for a
constant support of the iron-works there, producing the best iron of Europe
for many years, and for the produce of timber for the navy, and other uses
in time to come; which might be of great use for defence of this nation,
the old trees there standing being above 300 years’ growth, and yet
as good timber as any in the world; and the ground so apt to produce, and
so strong to preserve timber, especially p. 39oaks, that within 100
years there may be sufficient provision there found to maintain the navy
royal for ever.”  Perhaps the ancient trees here named are those
of which Sir John Winter spoke in the “good discourse” Mr.
Pepys had with him, as “being left at a great fall in Edward the
Third’s time, by the name of forbid-trees, which at this day are
called ‘vorbid trees.’”

Here it may be noted, that there happened on the night of 18th February,
1662, a dreadful storm of wind, alluding to which Pepys
writes:—“We have letters from the Forest of Deane, that above
1,000 oakes and as many beeches are blown down in one walke there;”
and Mr. Fosbroke has recorded from some other source, that near Newent
“the roads were impassable till the trees blown down were cut away,
in some great orchards it being possible to go from one end to the other
without touching the ground.”

The Commission mentioned above was directed to Lord Herbert, as
Constable of the Castle of St. Briavel’s and Warden of the Forest,
and others, to examine the state and condition thereof.  After a
careful survey, it was reported by them that they had found 25,929 oaks and
4,204 beeches, containing 121,572 cords of wood, fit for being converted
into charcoal, as used at the iron furnaces, and 11,335 tons of ship timber
suitable for the navy.  They add, however, that “cabins of
beggarly people, with goats, sheep, and swine, began to invade the same as
formerly.”  A fresh agreement was forthwith entered into with
Sir John Winter on the part of the Crown, who thereupon surrendered his
former Patent, reserving the woods called Snead and Kidnalls, and nominated
Francis Finch and Robert Clayton to receive a new grant of all such trees
as were not fit for shipping, together with the use and occupation of the
King’s iron-works, and liberty to dig for and use iron ore and
cinders in the Forest.  Touching the drawing up of this agreement, Mr.
Pepys’s ‘Diary,’ under date 20th June, 1662, supplies us
with the following particulars:—“Up by 4 or 5 o’clock,
and to the office, p. 40and there drew up the agreement between the
King and Sir John Winter about the Forest of Deane; and having done it, he
come himself, whom I observed to be a man of fine parts; and we read it,
and both liked it well.  That done, I turned to the Forest of Deane,
in Speede’s Mapps, and there he shewed me how it lies; and the
Lea-bayly with the great charge of carrying it to Lydney, and many other
things worth knowing.”  They evidently enjoyed each
other’s society, for in the month of August next following they again
met at “the Mitre,” in Fenchurch Street, “to a venison
pasty,” whither Mr. Pepys was brought “in Sir John
Winter’s coach, where I found him” (he records) “a very
worthy man, and good discourse, most of which was concerning the Forest of
Deane, and the timber there, and iron workes with their great antiquity,
and the vast heaps of cinders which they find, and are now of great value,
being necessary for the making of iron at this day; and without which they
cannot work.”  Evelyn’s Diary of 5th November, 1662, also
points to the same topic:—“The Council of the Royal Society met
to amend the Statutes, &c., dined together; afterwards meeting at
Gresham College, where was a discourse suggested by me, concerning planting
his Majesty’s Forest of Dean with oake, now so much exhausted of ye
choicest ship-timber in the world.”

Sir John Winter lost no time in acting upon the privileges conferred on
him by the late agreement; but just as on the former occasion, it gave
extreme dissatisfaction to the neighbourhood, whose complaints reached the
House of Commons, and forthwith a committee was appointed to investigate
the whole matter; from which committee Sir Charles Harbord reported to the
House, “that Sir John Winter had 500 cutters of wood employed in Dean
Forest, and that all the timber would be destroyed if care should not be
speedily taken to prevent it.”  The report of the committee was
accompanied by certain propositions, which manifest a public spirit highly
creditable to the neighbourhood, although p. 41“the great
difficulty” is noticed “with which the many freeholders that
had right of common and other privileges were prevailed with to submit the
same to the Crown for enclosing the said Forest.”  These
propositions were made the basis of the ensuing Act, and I insert them
without abridgment.  They are headed:—

“Proposals by and on the behalf of the Freeholders, Inhabitants,
and Commoners, within the Forest of Dean, for the preservation and
improvement of the growth of timber there.

“Imprimis, That 11,000 acres of the wastle soil of the Forest of
Dean, whereof the Lea Baily and Cannopp to be part of the said wastle, may
be enclosed by his Majesty, and discharged for ever from all manner of
pasture, estovers, and pannage; and if ever his Majesty, or his successors,
shall think fit to lay open any part of the said 11,000 acres, then to take
in so much elsewhere, so as the whole enclosure exceed not at any one time
11,000 acres.

“That all the wood or timber which shall hereafter grow upon the
remaining 13,000 acres shall absolutely belong to his Majesty, discharged
from all estovers for ever, and pannage for twenty years next
ensuing.  That the whole wastle soil be re-afforested, and subject to
the Forest laws; but that the severity of the Forest laws be taken off from
the lands in several, belonging to the freeholders and inhabitants within
the said Forest, they themselves being contented to serve his Majesty,
according to their several offices and places, as formerly at the Forest
courts.

“That the deer to be kept on the said waste soil may not exceed
800 at any one time; and the fees which belong to the particular officers,
touching venison, may be preserved to them, as to venison only, and not to
wood and trees.

“That it is consented to that the winter heyning and fence month,
according to the Forest law, being p. 42such times wherein no
kind of cattle be permitted to abide in any part of the said waste, may be
understood to be from Saint Martin’s day in the winter to Saint
George’s day in April; and afterwards, from fifteen days before
Midsummer to fifteen days after.

“That all grants of any part of the waste soil of the said Forest
be re-assumed and made void; and that no part of the said waste or soil be
aliened for ever from the Crown, or farmed to any particular person or
persons, by lease or otherwise.

  “And that this may be settled by Act of Parliament.

      “(Signed) Hen:
Hall.    Dun: Colchester,
        Wm. Probin.  Jo: Witt.”

The importance of the foregoing propositions appears from the use made
of them, more than a century afterwards, by the Commissioners of Woods and
Forests in 1788, who informed the descendants of those gentlemen who
appended their names to the above document, that they had thereby lost all
claim to any perquisite in the way of bark and windfalls; observing also,
that the important Act of 1668 (20 Charles II.) resulting from it was
approved by and obtained at the desire of the freeholders, inhabitants, and
commoners then living.

Another proposition intended to further the preservation of the Forest
woods was presented to the Lord Warden of the Castle of St. Briavel’s
by the freeholders thereof, promising on their part to relinquish claims to
wood and timber for so long a time as “his sacred Majesty”
should resolve to suspend his iron-works therein, whom they implore to call
in the patent granted to Sir John Winter.

Some idea may be formed of the strength of public feeling against Sir
John Winter, on account of his wholesale fellings of the Forest timber, by
the decision which Mr. Pepys records his “cousin Roger” to have
given upon him, viz. that “he deserves to be hanged.”  In
order that the mischief might be put an end to as soon as possible, late as
it was in the session, a bill was brought p. 43into the House for
settling the Forest, and preserving and improving the wood and
timber.  Parliament was prorogued, however, before the bill could
pass, and its promoters had to be content with the House
“recommending the Lord Treasurer and the Chancellor of the Exchequer
to take care for the preservation and improvement of the
Forest.”  This recommendation appears to have had no influence
on Sir John Winter, for on a new survey made in 1667 it was reported to
Government that out of the 30,233 trees sold to him, only about 200
remained standing, and that from 7000 to 8000 tons of timber, fit for his
Majesty’s navy, was found wanting.  He would seem to have felt
some alarm at this report, for twice about this time he resorted to Mr.
Pepys, who writes, 15th March, 1667—“This morning I was called
up by Sir John Winter, poor man, come in a sedan from the other end of the
town, about helping the King in the business of bringing down his timber to
the sea-side in the Forest of Deane;” and again 30th April,
“Sir John Winter, to discourse with me about the Forest of
Deane.”

All the propositions sent up to the Government in 1663 were incorporated
in the Act of 20 Charles II., chap. 3, which also provided that the new
enclosures should be perfected within two years, in favourable and
convenient places, the cost of making and maintaining them being met by the
sale of such trees as would never prove timber; that no trees were to be
felled until they had been viewed and marked by two or more justices of the
peace, under a penalty of twenty pounds; that no fee-trees were to be
allowed, and all grants to be void; that every freeholder might do what he
pleased with his land; that no enclosure was to be mined, quarried, or
trespassed in; that the bounds of the Forest were to remain as settled in
20 James I.; that all lawful rights and privileges relating to its minerals
were to continue, with permission to the Crown to lease coal-mines and
stone-quarries for periods not exceeding thirty-one years; that the
letters-patent granted for a term not expired to Sir John Winter, Kt.,
Francis Finch and p. 44Robert Clayton, Esqs., should remain good, as
also, certain leases granted to Thomas Preston, Esq., and Sir Edward
Villiers, Kt.  After all that had occurred, it seems strange that Sir
John Winter should have obtained permission by Act of Parliament to retain
his patent; he had however several powerful friends, and also strong claims
on the Crown in consideration of his services during the civil war.

p.
45CHAPTER III.
A. D. 1663–1692.

First “Order” of forty-eight free
miners in Court—8,487 acres enclosed and planted—Speech-house
begun—Second order of the Miners’ Court—The King’s
iron-works suppressed—The six “walks” and lodges planned
out—All mine-works forbidden in the enclosures—Third order of
the Miners’ Court—Enclosures extended—Fourth order of the
Miners’ Court—Speech-house finished—The Forest
perambulated—Fifth order of the Miners’ Court—Proposal to
resume the King’s iron-works rejected—Sixth and seventh orders
of the Miners’ Court—Riots connected with the
Revolution—Eighth order of the Miners’ Court—Dr.
Parsons’s account of the Forest.

Contemporaneously with the important Parliamentary enactments noticed in
the preceding chapter, there took place, on the 18th of March (1663), the
earliest session of a local but very significant court, that of “the
Mine Law,” whose date and proceedings have been preserved.  It
was held at Clearwell before Sir Baynham Throgmorton, deputy constable of
St. Briavel’s Castle, and a jury of forty-eight free miners, and
shows that the Forest Miners of that day were a body of men engaged in
carrying on their works according to rule, so as to avoid disputes or
unequal dealing.

The Court ordered and ordained, as respects the western half of the
district, that the minerals of the Forest could only be disposed of, beyond
the limits of the Hundred, by free miners; that no manner of carriage was
to be used for transporting them, nor more than four horses kept by any one
party; that the selling price was to be determined by six
“Barganers”; but that any free miner might carry “a
dozen” of lime coal to the lime slad for 3s., to the top of the
Little Doward for 5s. 6d., to any other kilns thereon for 5s. 4d., to the
Blackstones for 5s., to Monmouth for 5s. 6d., to the Weare over Wye for
4s., to Coldwall for 3s. 6d., to Lydbrook for 3s., and to Redbrook for 4s.
4d.; that no young man who had not served an apprenticeship for five years
should work for himself at the mine p. 46or coal, nor should any
of the “labourers” do so unless they had worked seven years,
neither was any young man to carry coal, &c., unless he was a
householder; and that none should sue for mine, &c., but in the Court
of the Mine, under the penalty “of 100 dozen of good sufficient oare
or coale, the one-half to be forfeited to the King, and the other halfe to
the myner that will sue for the same.”  The originals of this
foregoing, and of the seventeen succeeding “Orders,” written on
parchment, are preserved in the office of the Deputy Gaveller at
Coleford.  The forty-eight signatures to it are almost effaced, and
about half have “marks” affixed to them, but the whole are
written in the same hand.

The new Act of 1668 was soon brought into operation.  Immediately
after it had passed, upwards of 8,487 acres of open land were enclosed and
planted, the remaining 2,513 acres being taken in some time
afterwards.  The following statement of Mr. Agar, then surveyor of the
woods, shows that the cost of making the enclosures was raised as the Act
directed.  He said that he “received several sums of money by
the sale of cordwood to Mr. Foley and divers others, and of the timber that
did happen to arise out of the old oaks and beeches felled for the cordwood
and other uses, and of wood that I sold to the colliers for their
pits, in the whole amounting to £5,125 8s. 9¼d., which money
was expended in buying Cannope, &c., of Banistree Maynard, Esq., at
£1,500; in setting up his Majesty’s Enclosures in the said
Forest, of 8,400 acres, with gates, stiles, &c., and some reparations
of them; in employing a sworn surveyor to admeasure them; in building part
of the Speech House; in divers repairs at Saint Briavel’s Castle; in
the charge of executing two several commissions, and other services in the
said Forest.”

In allusion to the item of timber sold to the colliers, the
commissioners, in their report of 1788, remark:—“Immediately
after the passing of the Act of 1668, the colliers, who, it is said, now
pretend to have a right to whatever timber they find necessary for carrying
on their works in the Forest, without paying anything for it, then
purchased it from the Crown.”  It seems also that “the
Speech House” was then commenced, although it was not finished until
1682.

p.
47The second existing Order of the Mine Law Court states that
it met in 1674, on the 9th March, at Clowerwall, before Sir George Probert,
deputy constable of St. Briavel’s Castle, chiefly with the design of
raising a fund for defending in a legal way the rights of the free miners,
and affording them support when injured at their work.

To these ends a payment of 6d. per quarter was levied upon each miner,
digging for or carrying mineral, if fifteen years of age, as also upon
every horse so used, payable within fourteen days, under a fine of
2s.  Six collectors were to receive the above payments, to be
remunerated at the rate of 1s. per quarter for each pound they
gathered.  Twice a year they handed in their accounts, under a penalty
of £5, and perpetual exclusion from any office of trust, if such were
found defective.  It appears therefore that the free miners valued
their rights, and not only took thought for the morrow, but provided for
it.  They added a proviso that the servants of the Deputy Constable
should have the benefit of always being supplied first at the pits, showing
that they knew something also of public diplomacy.  This
“Order” has the names of forty-eight miners attached, all
severally sealed, but written in one hand.

In this year also (1674) it was suggested that if the King would put the
old iron-works of the Forest in repair, and also build one furnace and two
forges, all which might be done for £1,000, a clear profit of
£2,190 could be made upon every 8,000 long and short cords of wood,
of which the Forest was in a condition to supply a vast quantity. 
This proposal was nevertheless not acted upon, it being judged desirable
rather to pull down the old iron-works than erect new, lest the waste in
supplying the necessary quantities of wood should ultimately prove
destructive to the Forest, now in a flourishing condition. 
Accordingly the iron-works then standing were ordered to be pulled down,
and the materials sold.  The greatest attention is admitted by the
commissioners of 1788, who examined the office papers relating to this
period, to have been given by the then Ministers of State, by Sir Charles
Harbord, surveyor-general of the Crown lands, and by his son and successor
Mr. William Harbord, to the protection of the young wood and the
enclosures; and they affirm that “it is chiefly in those parts of the
Forest which p.
48were then enclosed that the timber with which the dockyards have
been since furnished from this Forest has been felled, and in which any
considerable quantity of useful timber may now be found.”

On the 28th of September, 1675, at the recommendation of Sir Charles
Harbord, to whom the plan was probably suggested by the precedent of the
ten bailiwicks into which the district had been anciently divided, the
Forest was formed into six “walks,” or districts, a keeper
being appointed to each.  Six lodges were built for their use in
convenient situations, with 30 acres of land attached, “for the
better encouragement and enabling of the said keepers to attend and watch
over the said enclosures within their several walks, and to preserve the
same, and the young springs of wood and trees thereon growing, and to grow
from time to time, from spoil and harm.”  The names given to
each of the six divisions were derived from some of the most eminent living
characters of that day.  Thus, the Speech House, or King’s Walk,
was so called after Charles II.; York Walk and Lodge after the Duke of
York; Danby Walk and Lodge after the Earl of Danby, prime Minister at the
time; Worcester Walk and Lodge after Henry Marquis of Worcester, the then
constable of the Castle of St. Briavel’s, and warden of the Forest;
Latimer Walk and Lodge after Viscount Latimer; and Herbert Walk and Lodge
after Lord Herbert; in the two last instances, out of compliment to the
Worcester family apparently.  The Speech House was so called from its
being intended for the use of the ancient Court of “the
Speech,” as mentioned in the Laws and Franchises of the Mine. 
Now also a grant of sixty tons of timber was made by the King towards
rebuilding the parish church of Newent, as a tablet therein declares.

How strictly the enclosures were preserved at this time against all
mining operations, is shown by the refusal which Sir Charles Harbord gave
to a petition presented to the Treasury by several gentlemen and
freeholders of the parish of Newland, for leave to make p. 49a coal level through an
enclosure, although they were backed by Sir Baynham Throckmorton,
Deputy-Governor of St. Briavel’s Castle, who had also been one of the
Commissioners first appointed for carrying out the Act of 1668, and who
gave it as his opinion that agreeing to the prayer of the petition would
conduce to the preservation of the woods in the Forest, and the convenience
and advantage of the country.  The wording of the refusal was very
peremptory, to the effect that “the enclosures could only be
preserved for timber by being kept discharged from all claims;” that
“although miners and quarrymen had been long permitted to dig where
they pleased, yet that they could not prove their right to do so; and as to
coal-works, any such claims were unknown, much less any liberty of cutting
his Majesty’s woods for the support thereof; and the same ought to be
totally suppressed, and would be so by a good officer, as Colonel Wade was
in the time of the Usurpation, and that only by the Forest Law, and the
ordinary authority of a Justice of Peace.”  It is not unlikely
that in the last observation a hint was intended to be given to Sir Baynham
Throckmorton, lest he should compromise his independent position with the
colliers in the Forest by publicly accepting, as he had done the year
before at their Mine Law Court, “their thankfull acknowledgment of
the many favors received by them from him,” in return for which they
agreed that, when he “should send his own horses or waynes to any of
the colepitts for cole, the miners shall presently seame and load them
before any other person whatever.”

Passing over an interval of three years, we come to the date of the
third of the Mine Law Courts, held on the 8th September, 1678, at
“Clowerwall,” before Sir Baynham Throckmorton, &c., whose
favour it shows the free-miners were most anxious to preserve, since, upon
understanding that the former order of 1668, forbidding any foreigner to
convey or deliver minerals, had proved prejudicial to him and his friends
and tenants, they now revoked the same, allowing any foreigner to carry
p. 50fire
or lime coal for his own use; besides which, they constituted the Marquis
of Worcester, the then Constable of St. Briavel’s Castle, as well as
Sir Baynham Throckmorton, his Deputy, “free miners to all intents and
purposes.”

This same Court decided that “the Winchester bushell, three of
which were to make a barrell,” should be the constant measure for
“iron ore and coale,” 4d. being the smallest price allowed to
be taken for “a barrell of fire coale.”  Pits having
become numerous, they decreed that “none should presume to sink a pit
within 100 yards of one already made without the consent of the
undertakers, under a penalty of 100 dozen of good fire coale” (which
is the earliest regulation for protecting coal-works).  Lastly, six
“barganers” were to fix the price at which iron ore should be
sold or carried to the different works.  The names of forty-eight
miners are appended to this “order,” all written in the same
hand opposite their respective marks.

The importance of securing a supply of timber for the navy led to
frequent Commissions of Inquiry, and the issue of Instructions, with
respect to the royal forests.  The Marquis of Worcester, Warden of
Dean Forest, made a Return, on the 23rd of April, 1680, minutely describing
the condition of the older trees, as well as of those planted ten years
before, together with the state of the fences surrounding the new
plantations.  Parts of several of the enclosures are reported to have
trees which were grown up out of the reach of cattle, and therefore fit to
be thrown open, an equal quantity of waste land being enclosed instead,
which was accordingly done by warrant, dated 21st July, 1680, not more than
eleven years from the time they were taken in: consequently the young trees
must have grown with rapidity, or else were left to take their chance very
early.  With the design as it would seem of making room for the new
plantations, it is further stated that “there were remaining about 30
cabins, in several parts of the Forest, inhabited by about 100 poor people,
and that they had taken care to demolish the said cabins, and the
enclosures about them.”  It should be remarked that these poor
people must not be classed with the “free miners” of the
Forest, although “they had been born in it, and never lived
elsewhere,” but p. 51as “cabiners,” who had to work
seven years in the pits before they could become “free.”

The fourth Record of the Mine Law Court informs us that it sat
before Sir Baynham Throckmorton on the 27th April, 1680, at the Speech
House, yet barely completed, unless it were the spacious Court-room,
devoted to the public business of the Forest, for which it has been p. 52used ever
since.  The “Order” then passed implies, that although the
last Court had appointed six “bargainers” to deal with the
difficult question of valuing the minerals offered for sale, inconvenience
was yet experienced on this head.

It was therefore decreed that a dozen Winchester bushels of iron ore
should be delivered at St. Wonnarth’s furnace for 10s.; at
Whitchurch, for 7s.; at Bishopswood, for 9s.; at Linton, for 9s.; at
Longhope, for 9s.; at Flaxley, for 8s.; at Gunsmills (if rebuilt), for 7s.;
at Blackney, for 6s.; at Lydney, for 6s.; at those in the Forest lately
demolished (if rebuilt), for the same as before; at Redbrooke, for 4s. 6d.;
at the Abbey, viz. Tintern, for 9s.; at Brockweare, for 6s. 6d.; at
Redbrooke Passage, for 5s. 6d.; at Gunspill, for 7s.  So also no house
or smith’s coal was to be delivered on the banks of the Wye, below
Huntsam Ferry, for less than 8s. a dozen bushels, or for 4s. 6d. if only
lime coal; and if above Huntsam, 3s. 6d., on a forfeiture of 100 dozen of
good iron ore, the one half to his Majesty, and the other to the miner that
will sue for the same, together with loss of “freedom” and
utter expulsion from the mine-works—a very heavy penalty for such an
offence, showing the arbitrary power assumed by the court, at one time
conferring free-minership upon strangers and foreigners, and at another
deposing the free miner merely for an over or even an under charge.

This “order” likewise informs us that the instructions given
in 1674, to pull down the King’s iron-works in the Forest, had been
so thoroughly executed, that all the furnaces were ere this demolished,
leaving such only to be supplied with ore as were situated beyond the
Forest limits.  These furnaces seem to have taken about 600 dozen
bushels of ore at one time, during the delivery of which no second party
was allowed to come in.  It is signed by fourteen out of the
forty-eight free miners in their own hands, which is so far an improvement;
but if the iron trade was unpromising, owing to the course which the
Government felt constrained to take, lest its development should endanger
the timber, it was not so with the coal, the getting of which the Crown
would obviously regard with favour, in the hope that it would relieve the
woods from spoliation.  Accordingly, we shall find that from about
this period on through the next century coal-works were constantly on the
increase, so as eventually to throw the getting of iron-ore into the
shade.  This last p. 53“order” cancelled an agreement
passed by the Mine Law Court on the 9th of March, 1675, to the effect that
a legal-defence fund be raised; but it confirmed the decree of a former
court forbidding any young man to set up for himself as a free miner unless
he was upwards of twenty-one years of age, and had served by indenture an
apprenticeship of five years, and had also given a bond of ten pounds to
obey all the orders of the said court.

One of the most minute of the various perambulations of this Forest
dates from about this time, and serves to identify several spots, the early
names of which have long passed away.  On this occasion nineteen
“regarders” went the rounds, preserving much the same course as
the bounds of 28 Edward I.

The next, or fifth session of the Mine Law Court was held at
Clearwell, on the 19th of September, 1682, Henry Melborne and William
Wolseley, Esqrs., acting as joint deputies for the Marquis of Worcester,
constable of St. Briavel’s Castle.

It confirmed, for the most part, the “orders” already
issued, and further exacted the payment, within six days, of 6d. from every
miner thirteen years of age and upwards, and an additional 6d. for every
horse used in carrying mineral, “for raising a present sum of money
for urgent occasions,” and required all coal-pits which had been
wrought out to be sufficiently secured.  Only fourteen signatures are
attached to this “order,” the remaining thirty-four free miners
making their “marks.”

In the course of the next year, a.d. 1683, a
scheme resembling that proposed ten years before was started by Sir John
Erule, supervisor or conservator of the Forest.  His project was to
raise £5,390 a year for the Crown, upon an outlay, in the first
place, of no more than £1,000, to be spent in building iron-works,
and an annual consumption of 8,000 cords of wood out of the Forest, care
being taken that no oak or beech-tree, fit or likely to become fit for
shipbuilding, be used.  The Lords of the Treasury referred the plan to
Mr. William Harbord and Mr. Agar, to be investigated and reported on. 
They rejected it however, as was done in the former case, and for the same
reason, namely, that if carried out it would prove injurious to the woods
and timber.

p.
54The sixth order of the Court of Mine Law records that it
assembled on the 8th of December, 1685, at Clearwell, before William
Wolseley, Esq., deputy to the Duke of Beaufort, constable of St.
Briavel’s Castle.

Its principal design seems to have been that of confirming the former
6d. rate, and authorizing the same to be raised to 10s., if necessary,
towards keeping up a fund for supporting the miners’ claims at law,
which of late they had been obliged to do in the Court of Exchequer against
Mr. Beck and others.  The order concludes with the following
direction: “That one-half of the jury should be iron-miners, and the
other half colliers,” so rapidly had coal-mining advanced, and so
important had its condition become.  An examination of the original
document shows this order to have been signed by one person writing down
the names of the forty-eight free miners, since they all exhibit the same
hand-writing.

The seventh of the orders still extant reports the Court of the
Mine to have been held at Clearwell on the 5th of April, 1687, before
William Wolseley, Esq., and commences by stating that more money was wanted
for legal purposes, and that every miner must pay two shillings, with two
shillings besides for every mine-horse, towards meeting them.

It likewise directed that each coal-pit and dangerous mine-pit, if left
unworked for a whole month together, should be fenced with a stone wall or
posts and rails, under a penalty of 10s.  All previous orders, fixing
the prices at which the minerals of the Forest were alone to be sold, were
now abolished, not having been found to answer; and all miners were left at
liberty to sell or carry and deliver their ore and coal to whom, where, and
how they pleased; and whereas previously all colliers were entitled to be
first served at the pits, now it was ordained that the inhabitants of the
hundred should precede the trade, and that those miners only should keep
horses who had land sufficient to feed them.  The following provision
speaks for itself—“For the restrayning that pernicious and
abominable sinne of perjury too much used in these licentious times, every
myner convicted by a jury of 48 miners in the said Court shall for ever
loose and totally forfeite his freedome as touching the mines, and bee
utterly expelled out of the same, and all his working tooles and habitt be
burnt before his face, and he never afterwards to be a witness or to be
believed in any matter whatsoever.”  Of the forty-eight jurymen
whose names are appended to the above, sixteen signed.

It was in the month of January following (1688) that a riotous
assemblage of the people pulled down p. 55Worcester Lodge and
York Lodge, besides much defacing and spoiling the Speech House; an outrage
connected probably with the unpopularity of James II., after whom the
Speech House and York Lodge were called.  With reference to the
general feeling of the neighbourhood respecting the principles of the
Revolution, Mr. Pyrke, of Dean Hall, states that the release of Lord
Lovelace, a supporter of the Prince of Orange, out of Gloucester prison,
was effected by “a young gentleman of that county,” an ancestor
of his, “who took up arms for the Prince, and drove out all the
Popish crew that were settled in that city,” and that the exploit has
been handed down in the following rude lines, sung by his haymakers at
their harvest supper:—

“A health to Captain Pyrke, who in Little Dean was bred,
And of a thousand men he was the head;
He fought for the truth and the Protestant faith;
We drink his good health, and so do rejoice.

He down in the West King William did meet,
And to him he sent both oxen and sheep,
Till he had an order which from him did come,
And with honour to Gloucester he brought him along.

When he came to Gloucester he had but forty men,
The city of Gloucester all barred unto him;
The city was guarded with soldiers about,
But he brought Lord Lovelace from his prison quite out.

With sword in his hand he before them did go;
He was not ashamed his face for to show:
‘They who have anything to say to Lord Lovelace,’ said he,
‘O then, if they have, let them speak it to me.’

Then up to the Mayor away he did get,
And his wooden god to pieces did beat;
And the big golden chair where King James sate
He threw in the fire, which made a brave heat.

Then up into Oxfordshire away he did ride,
To bring Lord Lovelace safe home;
He plundered the Papists along as he goes,
He could not endure to see us abused.”

Two years later than the date of the above outrages, wood-fellings to
the extent of 6,186 short cords were made, pursuant to their
Majesties’ letters of Privy Seal.  p. 56They were sold, it is
said, for six shillings a cord, which was considered a good price for the
county of Gloucester.

A period of about five years from the time that the last was held brings
us to the date of the eighth record of the Mine Law Court, viz. the
17th of January, 1692.  It was held at Clearwell, before the three
deputies of the Constable of St. Briavel’s Castle, i.e. Tracy
Catchmay, John Higford, and George Bond, Esqrs.

The Court levied a further contribution of 12d. upon every miner, with
an additional 1s. on every mine horse, with which to clear off certain
charges incurred in a recent suit in the Court of Exchequer at
Westminster.  It extended the protective distance of 100 yards, within
which every pit was guarded from being encroached upon by any other work,
to 300 yards.  It also provided that no iron ore intended for Ireland
should be shipped on the Severn or Wye for a less sum than 6s. 6d. for
every dozen bushels.  This order was signed by sixteen out of the
forty-eight miners with their own hands, the rest making their marks
only.

To this period is assigned Dr. Parsons’s quaint remarks on the
Forest.  “It abounds,” he says, “with springs for
the most part of a brownish or umber colour, occasioned by their passage
through the veynes of oker, of which there is a great plenty, or else
through the rushy tincture of the mineralls of the ore.  The ground of
the Forest is more inclined to wood and cole than corn, yet they have
enough of it too.  The inhabitants are, some of them, a sort of
robustic wild people, that must be civilized by good discipline and
government.  The ore and cinder wherewith they make their iron (which
is the great imployment of the poorer sort of inhabitants) ’tis dug
in most parts of y^e Forest, one in the bowells, and the other
towards the surface of the earth.  But, whether it be by virtue of the
Forrest laws, or other custome, the head Gaviler of the Forrest, or others
deputed by him, provided they were born in the Hundred of St.
Briavel’s, may go into any man’s grounds whatsoever, within the
limitation of the Forrest, and dig or delve for ore and cinders without any
molestation.  There are two sorts of ore: the best ore is your brush
ore, of a blewish colour, very ponderous and full of shining specks p. 57like
grains of silver; this affordeth the greatest quantity of iron, but being
melted alone produceth a mettal very short and brittle.  To remedy
this inconvenience, they make use of another material which they call
cinder, it being nothing else but the refuse of the ore after the melting
hath been extracted, which, being melted with the other in due quantity,
gives it that excellent temper of toughness for which this iron is
preferred before any other that is brought from foreign parts.  But it
is to be noted that in former times, when their works were few and their
vents small, they made use of no other bellows but such as were moved by
the strength of men, by reason whereof their fires were much less intense
than in the furnaces they now imploy; so that, having in them only melted
downe the principal part of the ore, they rejected the rest as useless, and
not worth their charge: this they call their cinder, and is found in an
inexhaustible quantity throughout all the parts of the country where any
glomerys formerly stood, for so they were then called.”

p.
58CHAPTER IV.
a.d. 1692–1758.

Condition of the Forest described, and management
examined—Depredations—Ninth and tenth orders of the
Miners’ Court—Timber injured by the colliers—The Forest
in its best state, 1712—Eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth orders of
the Miners’ Court—Fourteenth order of the Miners’
Court—Swainmote Court discontinued—Extension of coal-works and
injury of trees—Forest neglected—Fifteenth, sixteenth, and
seventeenth orders of the Miners’ Court—Grant of 9200 feet of
timber to the Gloucester Infirmary.

Reverting to the general condition and management of the Forest, an
important commission was issued this year, 1692, to the Crown officers and
some of the neighbouring gentry, directing them to examine and inquire into
the six following particulars:—I.  The quantity of coppicewood
fit for being cut from year to year for twenty-one years to
come—II.  The annual charge for the next twenty-one years of
maintaining the enclosures—III.  What the cost would be of
disenclosing certain coal-pits, with which some of the plantations were
encumbered—IV.  What the salaries of the Crown officers of the
Forest amounted to, and the cost of making such repairs as the buildings
they occupied required—V.  As to the way in which the timber
fellings of 1688 had been disposed of, with the state of the enclosures, if
those who had charge of them had duly protected them from injury—and
VI.  How far trespass and pounding had been enforced, or unlawful
building permitted.

These were all very important questions, and under the first head, as to
wood fit to be cut for cording, &c., the commissioners report, that
“there are great and p. 59valuable quantities of scrubbed beech and
birch, with some holly, hazel, and orle, fit to be cut and disposed of,
being 192,000 cords, worth at 4s. 10d., amounting to £46,488, of
which 12,000 cords might be cut every year, worth £2,900.  Or,
as the total quantity of such wood was 615,500 cords, their worth at 4s.
10d. was £148,745 16s. 8d., to which £60,000 may safely be
added for future clearings if a twenty-one years’ lease be
granted.  £100 a year would suffice to keep the enclosures in
repair.”  The commissioners, in contemplating the expediency of
making a grant adapted to the requirements of iron-making, supposing the
King’s furnaces to be restored, considered that it “would
utterly destroy the Forest, now the best nursery for a navy in the
world;” since the party obtaining such a lease would be sure to
consider their own advantage rather than the preservation of the
district.  They also urged that a grant like that intimated was
opposed to the intentions of the Act of 20th Charles II., as also to the
previous decisions of 1662 and 1674, and would cause much dissatisfaction
amongst the freeholders of the Forest, who were prepared to petition
against it.  The commissioners recommended that “the making of
the fellets, if put in execution, should certainly be intrusted to the
present officers, who had given sufficient testimony of their care in such
matters.”  Their report adds that “the Lea Bayly is now a
spring of oak and beech of four, five, and six years’ growth, but
much cropped and spoiled by cattle, by reason the enclosures made for the
preservation thereof have in the night been several times pulled down and
destroyed by persons unknown.”  The other places mentioned in
the Act of 1668, called “Cannop Fellet, Buckholt, Beachenhurst, and
Moyey Stock,” are described as “generally very well grown with
oak and beech of fifty, forty, and thirty years’ growth, and under,
many thousand of them being forty foot and upwards, without a bough to hurt
them.”  They further state, that some of the enclosure fences,
especially those on the north-east side of the Forest, would p. 60cost £137
10s. to repair, and £30 a year afterwards, perhaps, to keep them
good, the other parts formerly enclosed not needing reparation, the trees
being grown up past danger from deer or cattle, “unless in case of
some accident, or pulling down by the rabble, as hath been sometimes
done.”  Viewing the places where the last fellets for cordwood
were made in 1690, the commissioners state that “a very great stock
has been left upon the ground for timber, and all imaginable care taken by
the officers employed in making the said fellets, and preserving all the
stores and saplings, with the principal shoots of such beech as grow upon
old stools well sheltered by other woods, for the improvement
thereof.”  With reference to the expediency of throwing open
such of the enclosures as contained coal-pits, we learn that no
inconvenience was felt on that account, as “not more than six pits
had ever been so situated, and now not one, those plantations having grown
up, and their fences down.”  The sum total of salaries paid to
the conservators and six keepers was £210 per annum, arising from
wood sales.  Various repairs are stated to have been necessary. 
The Castle of St. Briavel’s, it is said, “hath been a very
great and ancient building, but the greatest part is ruined and fallen
down, and only some part kept up for a place to hold the courts in for the
King’s manor and hundred thereof, and also for a prison for debtors
attached by process out of the said courts, and for offenders and
trespassers within the Forest.  The same is very necessary to be
repaired; and for mending the roof and tyling, and in glazing, plaistering,
repairing the prison windows, and building a new pound, &c., will cost
the sum of £10 14s. 2d.  The cost of rebuilding Worcester and
York Lodges, pulled down by the rioters in 1688, and repairing the Speech
House, which was likewise much injured at that time, will be, they
calculate, £219 10s.”

As to injury done to the woods, the following presentments amongst many
others made by the keepers were instanced:—“John Simons of
Blackney, for cutting p. 61green orle wood.  Edward Revoke and James
Drew of Little Dean, for cutting and carrying away a young oak.  The
same Edward Revoke, for building some part of his house with wood out of
the said Forest.”  Respecting these depredations the
commissioners recommend that, in consideration of the colliers having, time
out of mind, had an allowance of wood, but not timber for the support of
their pits, but which has been stopped for some time, it may be again
allowed to them by order of the verderers, and taken by view of a woodward
or keeper.  The Attachment and Swainmote Courts are stated to have
been “duly kept, although ineffectually to the preservation of the
Forest, as they can only convict, but cannot punish; and that the
trespass-money paid into the said courts in this reign does not exceed 5s.,
the only remedy being in having a justice seat held for the purpose once a
year, for six or seven years.”  The report is signed by Wm.
Cooke, Re Pynder, Wm. Boevey, J. Viney, Jo. Kyrle, Phil. Ryley.

The ninth Mine Law Court was held on the 25th of April, 1694, at
Clearwell, before John Higford and George Bond, Esqrs.

It confirmed the punishment already awarded against “the
abominable sin of perjury,” to prevent which it directs that
“no person shall be permitted to sweare in his own cause unless it be
for a matter transacted underground, or where it was difficult to have any
witnesses;” nor shall any bargain be binding unless it be proved by
two witnesses.

All causes of debt or damage amounting to 40s. were to be heard on both
sides as in other courts, the verdict being given by a jury of twelve
miners; but in lesser causes by the Constable of the Court.  Provision
was also made that “every defendant have twenty-four hours’
notice to provide for his defence,” every witness being allowed 12p.
a-day, the fees of the Court remaining the same as before, all which, as
well as the defendant’s time, the plaintiff losing the cause, or
being non-suited, had to pay.  This “Order” also reduces
the price of ore for Ireland from 8s. to 5s. a dozen bushels, pitched at
Brockwere, or if at Wye’s Green for 4s. ditto; fire-cole at 8s. a
dozen bushels; smith’s-cole, 6s., and charking at 8s., “without
handing, thrusting, kicking, or knocking the same,” under the usual
penalty.  Eighteen miners out of the jury of forty-eight signed their
names themselves “to this Order,” the remaining thirty only
making their marks.

p.
62The earliest particular recorded in the next century bears date
1701, on the 27th January, in which year the tenth Miners’
Court of forty-eight sat at Clearwell, before Serjeant Powlett and George
Bond, Esq., deputies to Charles Earl of Berkeley.

Its proceedings were as follows:—Certain temporary orders, dated
the 12th March, 1699, and 11th November, 1700, regulating the loading of
horses and carts, forbidding any coal to be sent off by the river Wye below
Welch-Bicknor, authorizing the raising of money for paying the costs of the
miners’ debts in law, securing the Records of their Court, and making
the present deputy constable of St. Briavel’s Castle a free miner,
were confirmed and made perpetual.  Mention is also made for the first
time of “the utmost seventy” being the greatest number ever
comprised in the miners’ jury.  The order further directs that
the Records of Mine-law, used at the hearing of the suit in the Exchequer,
be recorded, and put into a chest, to be left in the custody of Francis
Wyndham, Esq., whom the court had made a free miner, and that in paying any
of the costs incurred in that cause a legal discharge be taken.  Now
the ton of 21 cwt. was fixed as a weight of coal, to be sold for 5s. to an
inhabitant of the hundred, or for 6s. to foreigners; and every pit was to
be provided with scales.  Upwards of twenty of the forty-eight miners
who formed the jury at this court put their names to the above verdict, the
remainder being marksmen.

In the year 1705, Edward Wilcox, Esq., Surveyor-General to the Royal
Forests, having carefully examined the condition of the woods in the Forest
of Dean, stated that he found them very full of young trees, of which two
thirds were beech, overtopping the oaks, to their injury; and he
recommended that one sixteenth part, or about 700 acres, should be annually
cleared and fenced in, which would yield a profit to the Crown of
£3,500 a year, and leave the standard oaks and beech to grow to
perfection.  Lord Treasurer Godolphin consented to this proposal, and
granted a warrant for carrying it into execution; but it was petitioned
against by those who claimed a right of common, whose free-pasturage would
thereby be lessened; at the same time, however, others were desirous that
it might take effect, as they would get a living by cutting the underwood,
and preparing it for the furnaces.  At length on the 4th of July,
1707, the Attorney-General, Sir Simon Harcourt, decided—that
“no claim or right of common could p. 63prevent the enclosing,
keeping in severalty, or improving, as her Majesty should direct, the
11,000 acres mentioned in the Act of 20 Charles II., and preserving the
same as a nursery of wood and timber only.”

Another event of this year was the holding a Court of Mine Law, on the
1st of July, at Mitcheldean, but afterwards by adjournment at Coleford,
before George Bond and Roynon Jones, Esqrs., deputies.

It confirmed the directions of a former court of forty-eight, that the
law-papers produced at the late suit in the Court of Exchequer, with all
the other records of the Mine Law Court, be collected forthwith, and
consigned to the care of Francis Wyndham, Esq.; and that the law debts then
incurred be at length paid, out of a 1s. rate upon every miner and
mine-horse.  The 20s. penalty for leaving pits unfenced was also
reimposed.  This “Order” bears the genuine signatures of
nineteen out of the forty-eight jurymen, the rest merely making their
marks.

In the next year, a.d. 1708, Mr. Wilcox, the
Surveyor-General, represented to Lord Godolphin that the inhabitants of the
neighbourhood had been stripping some of the trees of their bark, whereupon
those trees, with any others not likely to be of any use to the navy, were
ordered to be cut down and used for gates, stiles, and fences, or sold for
the benefit of the Crown.  Three years later a similar charge was
preferred against certain colliers for cutting trees and wood, but we do
not find that it came to anything.

Sir Robert Atkyns, to whom this Forest was well known, describes its
condition at this time, as “containing only six houses, which are the
lodges for so many keepers.  There had been many cottages erected, but
they had been lately pulled down;” not that there were literally no
other dwellings in it, for the ancient “assarted” lands were
probably so occupied, but the mining population lived for the most part in
the surrounding villages.  Speaking of the different Forest courts, he
says—“the Swainmote Court is to preserve the vert and venison,
and is kept at the Speech-house, which is a large strong house, newly built
in the middle of the Forest for that purpose.  There is another court
called the Miners’ Court, which is p. 64directed by a steward
appointed by the constable of the Forest, and by juries of miners, returned
to judge between miner and miner, who have their particular laws and
customs, to prevent their encroaching upon one another, and to encourage
them to go on quietly in their labour in digging after coals and iron-ore,
with which this Forest doth abound.”  The room in which most of
these courts were held retains its original character, only it has been
floored with wood, and is no longer divided by rails into compartments for
the jury and the accused.  Stains of human blood once marked p. 65the ceiling
over the north-east corner of the apartment, said to have dropped down from
the room above, where an unfortunate poacher, who had been much injured by
a gun, was confined.  It is asserted that for many years no water
could remove nor whitewash hide the unsightly marks.

In the Commissioners’ Report of 1788 it is said that about this
time (1712) the Forest was probably in its best state, although its courts
had not been so regularly held since the Revolution as before, yet that the
greatest attention had been given to it by the different authorities under
the Crown.  And as the commissioners deplore the unfavourable change
which had subsequently taken place, we may contrast the state into which
the Forest had then fallen, with its present condition, so much more
hopeful and lucrative than it had been at that the brightest period of its
past history.  There are no public documents relating to this Forest
to be met with for many years from this time; indeed it is hardly ever
mentioned in the book of the Surveyor-General of the Crown lands, which
only contained warrants for felling timber for the navy or for sale. 
The produce was for the most part directed to be applied to the repairing
of lodges, roads, or fences, or the payment of salaries to officers, or
fee-gifts from the Crown.  The proceedings of the Court of the Miners,
on the contrary, remain recorded, and serve to fill up the interval. 
They show that one was held at the Speech-house on the 7th of January,
1717, before Richard Machen and William James, Esqrs., deputies.

By it a 6d. levy was made on every miner, and on every working horse,
towards meeting any law expenses which the Society of Miners might incur in
defending their rights; and should more money be required, authorizing a
jury of only twelve miners, with the consent of the two deputy-constables,
to order the paying of the same.  It further imposed a fine of upwards
of £30 on any miner who should sue another respecting any matter
relating to the mine in any other court.  It also constituted the
Honourable Matthew Ducie Morton, Thomas Gage, John Wyndham, Richard Machen,
William James, and Christopher Bond, Esqrs., free miners, “out of the
due and great respect, honour, and esteem borne towards them.” 
We need not call in question the truthfulness of such p. 66protestations; but
doubtless, had these worthy miners perceived the inconsistency of such
admissions, they would not have so readily dispensed with the ancient
regulation which restricted the fellowship of the mine to those who had
worked therein.  They were well intended at the time, but long
afterwards weakened in a legal point of view the free miners’
rights.  This “Order” exhibits only eleven original
signatures, the thirty-seven other jurymen making their marks.

Only two years intervened between the holding of the Court just
mentioned, and the one which followed it, held at the Speech House, on 10th
November, 1719, before Richard Machen and William James, Esqrs.,
Deputies.

On this occasion certain previous orders were cancelled, and in their
stead it was determined that no one living out of the Hundred of St.
Briavel’s should convey any coal out of the Forest unless he belonged
to the Forest division of the county, and carried for his own private
use.  A penalty of £5 was imposed upon any person under
twenty-one years of age carrying ore or coal.  All traffic in coal,
either up or down the Wye, was to stop at Welch Bicknor, between which and
Monmouth Bridge no coal was to be pitched.  At Monmouth, fire-coal was
to be sold at 9s. the dozen bushels; smith’s-coal at 8s.; and
lime-coal at 5s. 6d.  Above Lydbrook, on the Wye, fire-coal was to be
sold at 8s. a ton, or the dozen barrels; smith’s-coal at 6s.; and
lime-coal at 3s.  One free miner was not to sell any fire-coal to
another under 5s. per ton of 21 cwt.  Roynon Jones and Edmund Probyn,
Esqrs., were made free miners.  Lastly, any former orders in private
hands, together with all writings relating to the Free-miners’ Court,
were to be delivered to William James, Esq., to be kept in the said
miners’ chest, at the Speech-house.  Perhaps this direction was,
with few exceptions, complied with, not, it would seem, in every case, as
several of those alluded to in the existing orders of the forty-eight
cannot be found.  Nineteen signatures made by the parties themselves
occur at the end of this Order; the rest are only marks.

Nine years passed away before another full Mine Law Court is
recorded.  This was on the 12th November, 1728, by adjournment, at the
Speech House, before Maynard Colchester, Esq., and William James, Gent.

The following gentlemen were made free miners:—Thomas Wyndham, of
Clearwell; Maynard Colchester, of Westbury; William Hall Gage, son and heir
to Lord Viscount Gage; William Jones, of Nass, Esqrs.; William Jones, of
Soylewell, Gent.; Robert James, of the same place, Gent.; Thomas Wyndham
the younger, of Clearwell, Gent.; Thomas Pyrke the younger, of Little Dean,
Gent.; p.
67and William Lane, Deputy Clerk.  A forfeit of £10 was
laid upon any miner who had received a “forbidment” from
another, if he persisted in carrying on his work in that place.  The
distance of 300 yards, which, by a former order, made in 1692, protected
every pit from interruption, was now enlarged to 500 yards in all levels in
all parts of the mines called “beneath the wood,” under the
same penalty; and further, the giving away of coals was forbidden under a
fine of £5.  Twenty-two original signatures appear at the foot
of this Order; the other names are merely marked.

The extension of the Forest coal-works, in depth and underground
operations, as indicated by the enlargement of the protective distance,
effected a corresponding change in the kind of timber required for propping
the mine.  That is, as the pressure from above increased, owing to the
workings being carried deeper, stronger stays and supports were necessary
than cordwood or saplings supplied.  Nothing less than the stems and
main limbs of timber trees would suffice.  How the colliers obtained
these requisites, the particulars given in the following complaint, made in
1735 by the Surveyor-General, show:—“A practice has prevailed
among the colliers of boring large holes in trees that they may become
dotard and decayed, and, as such, may be delivered to them gratis for the
use of their collieries.”  The only notice, it cannot be called
a remedy, which this evil obtained, was that, for the future, directions
were given that “such bored trees as appeared to be dead and spoiled
shall be felled, taking care that none be cut down that may be of use to
the navy.”

It is, however, further stated, that the colliers frequently obtained
from the keepers the best trees in the Forest, although their claims merely
extended to pit-timber.  The existence of so serious an evil proves
that many things were going wrong, and we are prepared for the
representations made the next year (1736) to the Treasury by Christopher
Bond, Esq., Conservator and Supervisor of the Forest.  He reported
that “after the Act of the 20th Charles II., 11,000 acres had been
enclosed; that the officers were duly elected, Forest courts held, and
offenders prosecuted and punished, to the successful rearing of a fine crop
of wood; but that p. 68within the last 30 years these elections had
been neglected, the Courts discontinued, and offenders left unpunished; the
Officers of Inheritance had grown remiss and negligent, so that some
enclosures, and those of only a few acres of the 11,000, were kept up, and
these not carefully repaired; a great number of cottages were erected upon
the borders of the Forest, the inhabitants whereof lived by rapine and
theft; that there were besides many other offences committed, such as
intercommuning of foreigners, surcharges of commoners, trespasses in the
fence month and winter haining, and in the enclosures; keeping hogs, sheep,
goats, and geese, being uncommonable animals, in the Forest; cutting and
burning the nether vert, furze, and fern; gathering and taking away the
crabs, acorns, and mast; and other purprestures and offences; carrying away
such timber trees as were covertly cut down in the night time; by which
practices several hundred fine oaks were yearly destroyed, and the growth
of others prevented; and that it was feared that some of the inferior
officers of the Forest, finding offenders to go on with impunity, were not
only grown negligent, but also connived at, if not partook in, the spoil
daily committed.”

To remedy this bad state of things, Mr. Bond proposed that a new law
should be passed, explanatory of the Act of 1668, by enforcing the Forest
officers to do their duty, and by superseding the odious, because unlimited
and arbitrary, proceedings of the former Chief Justices in Eyre by a jury,
and convictions before the verderers at their Swainmote Court, with a power
lodged in those officers to fine, under a certain sum, all offenders. 
The Surveyor-General of the Crown Woods had the above proposal submitted to
his consideration, and was directed to attend the Attorney and
Solicitor-General, Sir John Willis and Sir Dudley Ryder, to take their
opinion thereon, which was, that “the offences were chiefly owing to
the neglect of putting the Stat. 20th Charles II. in execution; and they
recommended, therefore, that the several vacant offices of the Forest p. 69should be
filled up, that the Forest Courts should be regularly held, and that the
officers should be strictly enjoined to do their duty.”  It is
disappointing to find no evidence that anything was done in consequence of
this opinion.

About this time the fifteenth of the series of
“Orders” enacted by the Mine Law Court of forty-eight, informs
us that it met by adjournment at the Speech House on the 6th of December,
1737, before William Jones, Esq., Deputy Constable of St. Briavel’s
Castle.

Owing to the injury which it was considered foreigners had done to the
free miners by carrying coal out of the Forest for merchandise, it was
decided that for the future no such carrying should be allowed except to
certain persons named, under a penalty of £5, or property to that
amount, or imprisonment in St. Briavel’s Castle for a year, to the
perpetrator or any cognizant thereof.  From this it seems perfectly
plain that the free miner regarded the carrying of coal as much a part of
his profession as getting it, and therefore equally requiring
protection.  The “Order” proceeds to direct that in every
suit before the Mine-Law Court the plaintiff and defendant were to pay 6d.
to the Clerk for entering the same, which was to form his salary.  The
rights of free-minership were conferred upon the Honourable Thomas Gage,
Christopher Bond the younger, Esq., Thomas Crawley, Esq., James Rooke,
Esq., Thomas James, Gent., Thomas Barron the younger, Gent., Thomas
Marshall, Yeoman.  John Wade was to be made “free” on his
working a year and a day in the mine; and making it a rule that a
foreigner’s son, being born in the Hundred, and seeking to become a
free miner, was to serve by indenture an apprenticeship of seven
years.  The above “Order” has only twenty-three marks
attached to it, more than half the jury signing their own names.

Proceeding to the date and objects of the next “Order” of
the same Court, we find that it had been adjourned to the 2nd March, 1741,
at the Speech House, before Edward Tomkins Machen, Esq., Deputy.  It
commences by explaining the terms “above” and “beneath
the wood” to be two ancient divisions of the Forest, “beginning
at the river Wye at Lydbrook, where the brooke there leading from the
forges falls into the said river, and so up the said brooke or stream unto
a place in the said Forest called Moyery Stock, and from thence along a
Wayn-way at the p. 70bottom of a place called the Salley Vallett,
and so along the same way between the two old enclosures that did belong to
Ruardean and Little Dean Walks unto Cannop’s Brooke, and down the
said brooke to Cannop’s Bridge; and from thence along the road or
highway to the Speech-house, and from thence along the said highway to
Foxe’s Bridge, and from thence down Blackpool Brooke to
Blakeney.”

It is worthy of remark, that the same boundary line, with only a
trifling difference, defines the two townships of East and West Dean, into
which the Forest is now divided for the purposes of the Poor Law Amendment
Act.  The connexion of this division with the Court of Mine Law
consisted simply in this, that the attendance of a free miner on the jury
was regulated by the position of his works and habitation in one or other
of them.

A £5 penalty was laid upon all miners who should send or carry any
coals to Hereford or Monmouth by the Wye, except lime-coal at “the
New Wears,” at 4s. a dozen bushels.  A similar fine was
inflicted on any inhabitant of the Forest division of the county who should
“presume” to carry coal otherwise than for their own use; so
also no miner was to work more than two pits at one time; nor to carry coal
for any person not a free miner; neither to sell fire-coal or stone-coal
charks under 7s. a dozen bushels, or 5s. if smith’s coal, at
Redbrook, which, if refused there, a “forbid” shall be declared
until the former coal should be accepted.  This “Order”
further enacted that if coal was found in any bargeman’s boat, and he
refuse to say from whom he had it, a general “forbid” shall be
declared that no miner serve him with any more.  A free miner is
briefly defined to be “such as have lawfully worked at coal a year
and a day.”  A foreigner selling coal at Hereford for less than
13s. per ton was to be summoned, or abide the consequences of a general
“forbid.”  Should there be at any time more than a
sufficiency of coal for the trade on the Wye, the barge-owners were to
employ the services of the miners, or be fined according to their
wages.  A horse-load to the Wye was fixed at 2 cwt. and a quarter for
6d., ten such making a ton, to be weighed, if required, under a forfeit of
2s. 6d.  Miners beneath the wood were bound to sell not less than a
cwt. of coal for 4d.; 3 bushels of smith’s coal for 5d.; and 1 bushel
of lime coal for 1d. at the pit.  No team was to be served with less
than 2 cwt. nor more than 21 cwt., to be weighed, if desired, or forfeit
£5.  This Order constituted Richard Clarke and Edward Tomkins
Machen, Esqrs., free miners, and exhibits at the end the penmanship of only
18 of the jury, all the rest merely making their marks.

p. 71We
now arrive at the seventeenth or last “Order” issued by
the Mine Law Court.  It dates 22nd October, 1754, and sat at the
Speech House, before Maynard Colchester and Thomas James, Esqrs.

It records the election to free-minerships of the Right Honble. George
Augustus Lord Dursley, Charles Wyndham of Clearwell, Esq., Rev. Roynon
Jones of Monmouth, John Probyn of Newland, Esq., his son Edmund, Maynard
Colchester the younger, Esq., Roynon Jones the younger, of Nass, Esq.,
Kedgwin Webley of London, Gentleman, Kedgwin Hoskins the elder, of
Clearwell, Gent., William Probyn the younger, of Newland, Gent., Mr.
Kedgwin Hoskins the younger, of Clearwell, Mr. Edmund Probyn the younger,
son of the said William Probyn, Mr. Thomas James the younger, Mr. Thomas
Baron the younger, son of Mr. Thomas Baron of Coleford, Herbert Rudhall
Westfaling, of Rudhall in Herefordshire, Esq., John Clarke, of “The
Hill,” in Herefordshire, Esq., Thomas Foley the elder, of
“Stoke Eddy,” in the said shire, Esq., Thomas Foley the
younger, of the same, Esq., John Symons, of the Mine, in the same county,
Esq., Ion Yate, of Arlingham, Esq., William Lane, of “King’s
Standley,” and Barrow Lawrence, of Bruen’s Lodge, Gent.

So full a list of persons of position and influence as this Order
exhibits, lending their names to the Free Miners’ Society, indicates
the existence of considerable importance in that body; and yet this was the
last Court having forty-eight free miners on the jury whose proceedings
have been preserved, the fact being that they failed to agree in their
verdicts, and then gentlemen refused to attend, owing, it is said, to the
violent quarrels and disputes which arose between foreigners possessed of
capital, who now began to be admitted to the works, and the free
miners.  It is also reported that the decisions of the court were
seldom observed, no Act of Parliament having passed to render them
valid.  The former protective distance between one mine and another
was increased from 500 to 1000 yards of any levels, and enforced by a
£5 penalty.  The order concludes with directing that

“The water-wheel engine at the Orling Green, near Broadmoor, be
taken to be a level to all intents and purposes.”  This machine
was evidently the first of its kind erected in the Forest, as was also the
steam-engine which superseded it, each manifesting the improvements going
on in the method of working the mines.  The p. 72signatures appended to
this final “Order” show twenty-five marksmen, and twenty-three
names written by their possessors.

The Benefaction-Boards of the Gloucester Infirmary record, in reference
to this period, the following particular:—“A gracious
benefaction from his Majesty King George II. of 9,200 feet of rough oak
timber from the Forest of Deane.”

p.
73CHAPTER V.
a.d. 1758–1800.

Mr. John Pitt suggested 2,000 acres to be
planted—The Forest surveyed—Great devastations and
encroachments—The roads—Act of 1786, appointing a Commission of
Inquiry—New plantations recommended—Messrs. Drivers employed to
report on the Forest—Corn riots—Mitcheldean market.

Reverting to the state of the woods and timber in the Forest, it appears
that ere this the old enclosures had been thrown open, the trees planted
early in this century having attained to considerable size, and some parts
so far cleared as to suggest the formation of new plantations.  In
1758 John Pitt, Esq., then Surveyor-General of Woods, &c., proposed to
the Treasury that 2,000 acres should be enclosed, which was ordered to be
done accordingly; but probably it was executed in part only, since Mr. Pitt
was removed from his office five years afterwards, when a survey of the
timber was made, and it was computed that there were 27,302 loads of timber
fit for the navy, 16,851 loads of about sixty years’ growth, and
20,066 loads dotard and decaying.  To this period also belongs the
first opening of the old Fire-engine colliery, or Orling Green coal-work,
galed to “foreigners,” but subsequently conveyed by them at
different times in shares to various persons, including the gaveller, by
whom the first fire-engine was put up about 1777, a date also memorable as
being the one on which the Court of Free Miners wholly ceased to act.

Mr. John Pitt was reinstated in 1763, and represented that he found
“great spoil had been committed, and great quantities of wood and
timber, amounting in value to £3,255, cut by order of Sir Edmund
Thomas, the late Surveyor-General, without warrant.”  The p. 74year
following, Mr. Pitt presented a second memorial to the Government,
proposing that 2,000 acres more should be taken in, at an estimated cost of
£2,077.  The usual warrant was issued for the purpose,
authorizing wood-sales to that amount, although the expense ultimately came
to £3,676. 5s. 6½d.

The attention of Parliament was directed at this time to the best means
of increasing the supply of timber to the Royal dockyards.  A
committee formed for investigating the matter produced the clearest
evidence of decrease of navy timber throughout the kingdom, to the extent
of at least two-thirds within the last forty years, according to the
experience of thirty different dealers.  The annual amount of such
timber supplied from Dean Forest is stated to have averaged at this time
about 2,000 loads.  Probably the most correct view of the disposition
of the woods, plantations, &c., and of the district in general, is
afforded by Mr. Taylor’s map of the county of Gloucester, published
in 1777.  It indicates the enclosures formed since the beginning of
the century, as well as a considerable extent of woodland; indeed we know,
from the return made to a Parliamentary survey taken in 1783, that the
Forest contained 90,382 oak-trees, amounting to 95,043 loads, besides
17,982 beech-trees, in which were 16,492 loads; to protect which more
effectually, Mr. Pitt instituted the place of “watch-man,”
attaching to it a dwelling-house on Oaken Hill, and a small quantity of
land, with a salary of £10, and any fines or rewards obtained on the
conviction of timber stealers.

Very mischievous devastations and encroachments were nevertheless still
continued.  For instance, Mr. Slade, the purveyor to the navy, stated
to the Treasury, that “he had discovered and was informed of most
shameful depredations of the oak timber, which was cut every day by persons
living round the Forest; and that for some years it had been the custom to
steal the body of the tree in the night, and cut it into cooper’s
wares, leaving the top part on the spot, which the keepers took as their
perquisite; and that whole trees p. 75were conveyed every spring tide to Bristol; and
that when he was at Gatcomb, in one day there were five or six teams came
with timber, planks, and knees, winter-felled, and other timber, among
which were several useful pieces for ships of fifty and sixty-four
guns.”  It was also stated by Mr. Pitt, the Surveyor-General,
that “everything in his power had been done to put a stop to them,
but that the offenders had become so desperate and daring as to bid
defiance to his deputies, and render every attempt of his in a summary way
totally ineffectual,” adding that, “not long before, a number
of persons in disguise had openly cut down two large timber-trees at
Yorkley, in Dean Forest, and wounded several keepers who attempted to
oppose them.”  Mr. Colchester likewise informed the Government
that “the greatest part of the fine timber this Forest has been so
famous for has been cut down, and the large and extensive tract of land
formerly covered with the noblest timber is now become a barren waste and
heath.”

Mr. Thomas Blunt, the deputy-surveyor, also reports, in allusion to this
period, that, “having formerly pulled down and destroyed many
cottages, fences, and enclosures, he had latterly been obliged to desist,
fearing his life and property were endangered by the repeated threats and
insults of the encroachers and their party.”  He adds that
“about 1000 loads of oak timber were annually being felled for the
use of the miners, of which at least one-fifth part was fit for naval
purposes; and that the great waste, spoil, and destruction of timber and
wood on the Forest is and hath been occasioned by an improper application
of the timber delivered to the miners for the use of their works, one-half
of which would have been more than sufficient, for that he had frequently
seized large quantities of offal timber, and such other timber as the
miners could not use in their works; and in particular that on or about the
28th of January, 1783, he seized and took 586 feet of oak-timber, and more
than 200 cleft pieces of oak, called kibbles, from one George Martin, who
acknowledged p.
76that they had been stolen.  He had also seized at the
Fire-Engine in the Forest between two and three waggonloads of timber, hewn
up and converted by the colliers into cooper’s wares for market, as
the neighbourhood, being a great cinder country, would
require.”  Joseph Pyrke, Esq., a verderer and deputy-constable,
further stated that “numberless encroachments, enclosing one, two, or
three acres, were taken in for gardens by the idle poor, and also by people
in good circumstances,” and that “nothing short of a capital
offence would ever preserve the remaining timber.”

We obtain information on the subject of pit-timber from Mr.
Hartland’s evidence before the Parliamentary Commissioners.  He
says that “the sorts of wood or timber delivered to the miners were
oak and beech, and none other; chiefly oak in the summer, more pits being
sunk in the summer than in the winter, and the keepers having the bark;
more beech is allowed in the winter than oak.  But oak timber is
necessary, and is always allowed, for sinking the pits, and for making what
the miners call the gateway, or gangway, from the body of coal to the pit,
and also for the gutters in the levels, for draining off the water; but
beech, birch, orle, holly, or any other kind of wood, would serve for the
purpose of getting coal, and supporting the earth after the coal is taken
away, but none is ever delivered to them but oak and beech.”  He
goes on to say that “the evil of the colliers misapplying the timber
served to them by the keepers could only be remedied by refusing it for the
future to such parties as had been detected therein.  Fining them was
found impracticable, owing to the difficulty of proving the timber to have
been the King’s, without which proof the justices could hardly
act.”

Rewards of £20, and in gross cases of £50, were offered to
any persons making a discovery whereby any of the offenders should be
convicted; but without much effect, for the sufficient reason, as stated in
the official report of 1788, that the resident officers derived advantages
from the continuance of the abuse.  Thus the p. 77Deputy-Surveyor took as
perquisites the tops of all timber rejected by the navy, as well as of all
stolen timber; all trees found felled by wood-stealers; one moiety of the
cord-wood made from the offal-wood of timber delivered to the miners, and
of stolen timber, besides from four pence to six pence for every tree
felled for the use of the miners; whereby his salary was raised from
£50 to £500 a year.  It was much the same with the six
keepers, who received one shilling on every order for delivery of timber to
the miners or colliers; the moiety of all offal-wood of timber cut for the
miners; the moiety of all cord-wood of stolen timber; all lengths or pieces
of trespass, and the bark of timber delivered to the miners, stolen timber
called kibbles, and of all stolen timber found within their respective
walks, by means of which their stipends were increased £100 a year
each.

Mr. Miles Hartland, the assistant-deputy-surveyor, in his examination,
on the 15th of May, 1788, before the Dean Forest Commissioners, also stated
that “he believed the cottages and encroachments in the Forest have
nearly doubled within the last forty years.  The persons who inhabit
the cottages are chiefly poor labouring people who are induced to seek
habitations in the Forest for the advantages of living rent free, and
having the benefit of pasturage for a cow or a few sheep, and of keeping
pigs in the woods; but many encroachments have been made by people of
substance.  The cattle of the cottagers are impounded when the Forest
is driven by the keepers, as all other cattle are; and when the owners take
them from the pound, paying the usual fees to the keepers, they turn them
again into the Forest, having no other means of maintaining them.  The
greater number of the cottagers are from the neighbouring parishes; but
there are also a great many from Wales, and from various parts of England,
remote from the Forest.  They are detrimental to the Forest by cutting
wood for fuel, and for building huts, and making fences to the patches
which they enclose from the Forest; by keeping pigs, p. 78sheep, &c., in the
Forest all the year, and by stealing timber.”

Speaking of the Forest roads, on which £11,631 3s. 10d. had been
expended within the preceding twenty-five years, Mr. Hartland stated that
“the principal were the road from Mitcheldean to Monmouth, and from
Little Dean to Coleford.  These two are public high roads, not
necessary or useful to the Forest, but rather detrimental to it by
affording the readier means to convey away the coal in waggons and carts,
in which timber has sometimes been found concealed.  Besides the
above, there are several roads leading from the Forest to Newland,
Coleford, and St. Briavel’s, which have been kept in repair at the
charge of the Forest, but are of no use to it—rather the
contrary.  The only road now used for conveying the navy timber is the
Purton Road, which is the most convenient for carriage to the water side
from all parts of the Forest except the Chesnuts in Edge Hills, and the Lea
Bailey; but there is no navy timber now in either of these places except
the Lea Bailey.  If the repairing of the public roads at the charge of
the Forest were to be discontinued, the public would be obliged to put up
turnpike gates on the roads, and collect tolls for repairing them, as in
other parts of the country.”

The parts of the Forest which Mr. Hartland described as being
“bare of timber and yet fittest to be enclosed as being of a very
proper soil, were Hazle Hill and Edge Hills, including Tanner’s Hill,
Green Bottom and Greenhill, Badcock’s Bailey and Chesnuts, East and
West Haywood, part of Great Staple Edge, Meezeyhurst, Howbeach and Putmage,
Buckhall, Moor and Bradley Hill, Bircham Dingles and Mason’s Tump,
Blakevellet, Breames Eves and Howell Hill, the Perch and Coverham, Great
and Little Bourts, the Lea Bailey, Bailey Hill and Lining Wood, Great and
Little Berry, Pluds and Smithers Tump, Blackthorn Turf and Serridge,
Kensley’s Ridge, Daniel Moor and Beechenhurst, ‘forming in
short twenty plantations,’ which might, he thinks, be enclosed by a
ditch about p.
793 feet deep and 3½ wide, with a quick hedge planted upon
the bank.”

The detection of the various abuses which the above extracts exhibit
constitutes the first fruit of the enactment of the 26th George III. (1786)
for appointing commissioners to inquire into the state of the woods,
forests, &c., of the Crown, and to report thereon, adding such
observations as should occur to them for their future management and
improvement.

Upwards of £2,000 worth of timber out of the Forest was granted,
26th of April, 1786, towards building a gaol in Gloucester, as well as a
penitentiary house and houses of correction within the county, at a total
cost of £30,000, upon the plea that the old castle, on the site of
which the gaol was to be built, belonged to the King, and also that one of
the houses of correction was to be erected within the Forest, whereby the
rights of the Crown would be supported.  The execution of this grant
required 1,690 trees.

The gentlemen appointed to act in the commission above named were, Sir
Charles Middleton, John Call, Esq., and Arthur Holdsworth, Esq., who
forthwith proceeded to collect information on the history and management of
the Forest of Dean, as well as the claims and usages of the mining
population.  Their report, being the third of the series, was
published on the 3rd of June, 1788.  Commencing with an introduction
respecting the Royal Forests generally, it proceeds to this Forest in
particular, “as being in proportion to its extent by far the most
valuable and the most proper for a nursery of naval timber,” and
refers first to the origin and results of the important Act of the 20th
Charles II.; then to the abuses which have since crept in, with their
disastrous effects; and, thirdly, to the best way of settling the claims of
commoners, and how to render this Forest a very valuable nursery of timber
for the royal navy.

All particulars bearing upon the two former heads have been as fully
stated in the preceding pages of this work as circumstances permitted:
under the last head, p. 80the suggestions of the commissioners amounted
briefly to this,—that, agreeably to the plan begun about the year
1638, under the supervision of Sir Baynham Throckmorton, a commission
should be created to superintend the enclosing of about 18,000 acres. 
The most wooded parts of the Forest were to be selected, and where the soil
was best fitted for the growth of timber, avoiding the coalworks, and
leaving out all necessary roads to be made and kept in repair by turnpikes,
unless required for the carriage of timber only; the rights of commoners
were to be discharged by allotting an equitable extent of land suitable for
pasture, and the colliers to pay for all pit timber; the deer were to be
disposed of, as demoralizing the inhabitants and injuring the young wood;
and lastly, the commissioners recommended ejecting the cottagers who had
established themselves in the Forest, as often before, in defiance of
authority, and who numbered upwards of 2,000, occupying 589 cottages,
besides 1,798 small enclosures containing 1,385 acres.  As to
defraying the cost of executing the above works, the commissioners
recommended the sale of about 440 acres of detached pieces of Crown land
adjoining the Forest, and if necessary dotard and decayed trees, or such as
would never become fit for naval use.

The surveyors, Messrs. A. and W. Driver, calculated the fencing,
planting, and keeping up the contemplated enclosures, for the whole of the
ensuing 100 years, at £564,330, by which time the timber would
probably be worth £10,680,473, and yield an annual net revenue of
£52,052.  According to the Report of these gentlemen, the Forest
then contained about 24,000 oak-trees averaging one and a half loads each,
and 24,000 oak-trees measuring about half a load each, not including
unsound trees, of which there were many, besides a considerable number of
fine large beech as well as young growing trees.  The principal stock
of young timber, from which any expectation could be formed, was in the Lea
Bailey and Lining Woods, which were in general well stocked, and would
produce a p.
81considerable quantity of fine timber, if properly fenced and
protected from the depredations of plunderers.  As to the names,
extent, and character of the plantations then existing, they report as
follows:—

“The Great Enclosure, which contained 743 acres 35 poles,
was begun to be made about twelve years ago, with post and rail; but before
the whole was completed, a great part was taken away, and nothing now
remains but the bank; there are no young trees of any kind.”

“Stonedge Enclosure was made about twelve years ago; it
contained 125 acres 1 rood 10 poles, and was fenced with a dry stone wall,
which is, for the most part, destroyed; there are a great many thorns and
hollies, with some very fine large oaks, but no young timber of any kind
coming up.”

“Coverham Enclosure, which contained 350 acres 2 roods 34
poles, was made about fifteen years ago, part with a dry stone wall, and
part post and rails; nothing but the bank now remains.  There was a
great quantity of young timber, particularly birch, in this enclosure,
which is nearly all destroyed in consequence of the fences being pulled
down.”

“Serridge Enclosure was made about twelve years ago. 
It contained 409 acres 3 roods 20 poles, and was fenced with a dry stone
wall, of which but little remains, being quite open in many parts; there
are no young trees of any sort, and but few old trees.”

“Heywood Enclosure contained 715 acres 3 roods 38 poles,
and was made about ten years ago, part with a dry stone wall, and part
pales; very few traces remain, and in some parts none at all.  We have
been informed that great part of the wall was pulled down, or fell, before
the whole was completed, and the pales carried away by waggons, &c.,
soon after they were put up; and from its present appearance it is evident
no advantage has been derived from this enclosure, as there are no young
trees in any part of it.”

p.
82The three following enclosures, containing together 323 acres 1
rood 33 poles, are all that remain enclosed and in good repair, except the
Buckholt Enclosure mentioned last, viz.:—

“Stapleage Enclosure, containing 183 acres 1 rood 3 poles,
has been made about five years, part with dry stone wall, and part dead
hedge; in general in good repair.  In some parts of it there are a few
small oak and beech plants, and also a few large oaks and
beeches.”

“Speech House Enclosure, containing 5 acres 6 poles, was
made four years ago by the Deputy Surveyor, and planted with acorns which
have produced some young oaks.”

“Birchwood Enclosure, containing 135 acres 24 poles, has
been made about five years, part with dead hedge and part dry stone wall,
which in general is in good repair; there are but few young oaks coming
up.”

“Buckholt Enclosure, which contains 352 acres 3 roods 20
poles, has been made about eighty years, the greatest part with a stone
wall, the rest hedge and ditch.  The fences of this enclosure have of
late years been kept in good repair.  There are some very fine large
oaks in it, but in general it contains a great quantity of fine young
beech.  There are also some oak-trees of about ten or fifteen
years’ growth, and young oaks are coming up from acorns which have
been set in vacant places.  A few Weymouth pines have also been
planted in this enclosure, which grow very well.”

The total acreage of these enclosures was 3,220 acres 6 poles, and their
position is shown pretty accurately by Mr. Taylor in his map of the
county.  Messrs. Driver’s report also informs us that there were
now 589 houses, 1,798 pieces of land encroached from the open Forest,
comprising 1,385 acres 3 roods 21 poles, thus distributed in the six
“walks:”—

Upwards of seventeen different Reports on the condition of “the
Forest and Land Revenues of the Crown” were made to Parliament by the
Commission of 1788, a fact which will partly explain the delay which took
place in carrying out the plans recommended in the Commissioners’
Third Report with reference to the Forest of Dean.  The chief
improvements effected were in the roads, under an Act passed in the year
1795, for mending, widening, and altering the existing roads, and making
new ones through the Forest to places adjoining, in the parishes of
Newland, Lydney, and Awre.  Mr. John Fordyce, now the
Surveyor-General, alluding to the subject in his Report, dated 1797, says,
that an arrangement had been made with the principal inhabitants in the
neighbourhood, whereby the cost of keeping up the roads was to be met by
means of turnpikes, the Crown constructing them in the first instance.

The year 1795 is associated with the disturbances commonly called, even
now, for they are not forgotten, “the Bread Riots.”  They
arose from the circumstance of the foresters being mainly dependent upon
the adjacent farms for their corn, but which was now, owing to war, largely
bought up by the Government, mostly at Gloucester and Bristol, for the
supply of the army and p. 84navy.  Hence the inhabitants of the Forest
district were left destitute of those supplies which the miners and
colliers of the Forest considered they were entitled to, in return for the
fuel which they furnished to the farmers.

The following extracts from the contemporary numbers of ‘The
Gloucester Journal’ minutely relate the acts of violence which
ensued:—

“On Saturday morning, 30th October, 1795, as Mr. King’s
waggon, of Bollitree, was bringing a load of barley to the Gloucester
Market, it was beset by a number of colliers from the Forest of Dean near
the Lea Line, who inquired what the bags contained, and when told that it
was barley, they cut the bags to examine; whilst this was passing, a
waggon, loaded with wheat, came up the hill belonging to Mr. Dobson, of
Harthill, in the parish of Weston, which was taken to in the same manner,
and both waggons with the grain were taken off to a place in the Forest of
Dean, called Drybrook, where the people divided the corn, and sent back the
waggons and horses to the owners.”  The next Saturday “a
party of foresters, chiefly from the neighbourhood of Lidbrook, stopped a
waggon belonging to Mr. Prince, of Longhope, loaded with ninety-two bushels
of wheat, and lodged it in Ross Market-house, professedly with the
intention of selling it out on Monday morning at eight shillings per
bushel.  A magistrate, however, reached Ross early on Monday, and,
accompanied by ten of the Essex Light Dragoons, saw the grain reloaded into
Mr. Prince’s waggon, and sent it off under their escort.  In
about an hour upwards of sixty foresters collected together, and set off in
pursuit of the waggon.  The magistrate followed on horseback, and at
the Lea he came up with the waggon, which he sent on, and ordered the
cavalry to stop till the approach of the mob.  They soon made their
appearance, and being at first somewhat refractory, the ringleader was
taken into custody; when, after the most persuasive remonstrances of this
very active magistrate, and the patient forbearance of the soldiery, they
were at last prevailed upon to give up p. 85the desperate idea of
rescuing the grain, and returned peaceably to Ross.”

A reputed highwayman, and noted deerstealer, named William Stallard,
living on the Upper Purlieu, above the Hawthorns, is stated to have been
the instigator of these outrages, and others of a similar kind on Mr.
Prince’s flour-mill at Longhope.  His lawless career, however,
brought him to the gallows at Gloucester for horse-stealing, at the age of
forty, on the 16th August, 1800, as appears by the records of that
gaol.  The decline of the market in Mitcheldean is said to date from
the above disturbances, which naturally deterred the neighbouring farmers
from sending their grain thither for sale. [85]

Nor were the bread riots confined to the northern side of the Forest, as
upon “the evening of the same day, November 9th, many persons
assembled at Hanstell, in the parish of Awre, in this county, where a
vessel belonging to Eversham, and bound to Bristol with a cargo of pease,
oil, flour, leather, and wheat, was waiting for the tide.  About
twenty men boarded her, examined the lading, and, upon discovering the
flour, gave loud huzzas, when the bank was instantly covered with their
comrades, who had many horses in waiting, with which they proceeded to
carry off the flour, though the trowmen (unable to defend the vessel, and
menaced with instant destruction) had offered to sell it to them at a
reasonable price.  About 7 o’clock one of the trowmen contrived
to slip ashore, ran to Newnham, and sent off an express to Gloucester for
immediate military aid; but fortunately that assistance was nearer at
hand.  In consequence of some apprehension of a disturbance p. 86at Mitcheldean,
an officer, with a serjeant and ten file of the Essex Fencibles Cavalry,
had marched into the place early in the morning, and upon the arrival of
the express from Newnham instantly set forth for the scene of depredation,
under the command of Lieutenant Wood, and headed by Mr. Pyrke, a magistrate
of Little Dean.  The freebooters fled in every direction, but five
men, named Thomas Yemm, Thomas Rosser, Richard Brain, George Marfell, and
John Meek, being the most active ringleaders, were apprehended, some in the
act of conveying away the flour upon packhorses, some had sacks of it upon
their shoulders, some were just landed from the vessel; and many were
busied on the bank, which was strewed with flour, dividing the sacks into
smaller quantities to render it more portable, for even women and children
were of the number.”  The five men already named were fully
committed on the following Tuesday to Gloucester Castle, there to be tried
at the Spring Assizes, being guarded thither by one hundred of the Surrey
Fencibles, who had arrived in Newnham at 3 o’clock previously. 
Shortly afterwards, the serjeant of the military, called out on this
occasion, was desperately bruised by a stone thrown at him by some
desperadoes as he was riding near Mitcheldean, and, on a subsequent
Thursday, some villains fired a piece loaded with slugs into the
bed-chamber of Mr. Pyrke.  At the ensuing Assizes, Thomas Yemm and
Thomas Rosser were left for execution, which, although, from the excellent
character they previously bore, some gentlemen of the Forest, and of the
Grand Jury, interceded with his Majesty on their behalf, they underwent on
the 11th April, 1797, acknowledging the justice of their sentence. 
The extraordinary scarcity, and consequent high price of provisions about
this time, were so acutely felt in this neighbourhood, that the Crown
distributed £1,000 worth of grain amongst the distressed
Foresters.

p.
87CHAPTER VI.
a.d. 1800–1831.

Lord Nelson’s remarks on the
Forest—Free miners endeavour to restore their Court of Mine
Law—White Mead Park planted—Act of 1808, authorising the
replanting of the Forest; six commissioners appointed for that
purpose—Six enclosures formed in 1810—Mice—Inquiry as to
the best mode of felling timber—Last of the enclosures formed
1816—First Forest church consecrated—High Meadow Woods
purchased—General condition of the Forest—Unsuccessful efforts
to restore the encroachments to the Crown—Plantations mended
over—Ellwood and the Great Doward Estates purchased—The
blight—Single trees planted out by the roads—Blight on the
oaks.

There is a statement of Lord Nelson’s relating to this Forest,
written about the year 1802, [87] in which he says: “Nothing in it can grow
self-sown, for the deer bark all the young trees.  Vast droves of hogs
are allowed to go into the woods in the autumn, and if any fortunate acorn
escapes their search, and takes root, then flocks of sheep are allowed to
go into the Forest, and they bite off the tender shoot.”  He
speaks of “a set of people called Forest free miners, who consider
themselves as having a right to dig for coal in any part they
please,” adding that “trees which die of themselves are
considered as of no value to the Crown.  A gentleman told me,”
(he says,) “that in shooting on foot (for on horseback it cannot be
seen, being hid by the fern, which grows a great height), the trees of
fifty years’ growth, fit for buildings, fencings, &c., are cut
just above ground entirely through the bark, and in two years die,”
so becoming a perquisite to the authorities.  Lord Nelson calculated
that the Forest would sell for £460,000.  He forcibly concludes:
“The reason why timber has of late years been so much p. 88reduced has
been uniformly told me—that, from the pressure of the times,
gentlemen who had £1000 to £5000 worth of timber on their
estates, although only half grown (say fifty years of age), were obliged to
sell it to raise temporary sums—say to pay off legacies.  The
owner cannot, however sorry he may feel to see the beauty of his place
destroyed, and what would be treble the value to his children annihilated,
help himself.  It has struck me forcibly that if Government could form
a plan to purchase of such gentlemen the growing oak, it would be a
national benefit, and a great and pleasing accommodation to such growers of
oak as wish to sell.”

Mr. Fordyce’s second report, as Surveyor-General of the Land
Revenues of the Crown, appeared on the 14th of December, 1802; but neither
this nor his third, dated the 4th of March, 1806, says anything about the
Forest of Dean.  In 1807 the free miners of the district held a
meeting, at which a resolution was passed, earnestly requesting the wardens
of the Forest to hold a Court of Mine Law, as soon as possible, with the
view of regulating the levels, pits, and engines.

Mr. Fordyce’s fourth and final report appeared on the 6th of
April, 1809, but it only speaks of the Forest so far as related to the
lands called “Whitemead Park,” hitherto in the occupation of
Lord Berkeley, but whose lease would expire in January, 1808, and was
sought to be renewed.  The Surveyor-General declined complying with
the request for renewal, upon the ground that the Park was unfavourably
situated for farming purposes, and that the buildings on it were in very
bad repair; whereas a large quantity of very fine timber, valued at
£11,736, had grown up on the land, proving the excellence of the soil
for that purpose; besides which, it was situated in the midst of the
Forest, and Mr. Fordyce determined to plant the whole of it with oak at the
earliest opportunity.  This circumstance appears to have stimulated
the Government to commence in good earnest the forming of plantations, in
accordance with the suggestions made in the Commissioners’ Report of
p. 891788,
[89]
which had been kept in view ever since, and as authorized by the old Acts
of the 20th of Charles II. c. 3, and 9 and 10 William III. c. 36.

The propriety, however, of acting upon these old enactments was now
doubted, as they had been so long overlooked or irregularly executed; and
hence the declaratory Act of the 48th of George III., c. 72, was passed in
1808, confirming the original power to enclose 11,000 acres, as well as
legalizing the enclosures of Buckholt, Stapledge, Birchwood, and Acorn
Patch, formed a few years previously, containing altogether 676 acres, and
making it felony to persist in breaking down any of the fences belonging to
the same.  The above-named enclosures were the only ones then
existing.  The Buckholt principally contained beech; Stapledge was
thinly stocked with oak, except on the north side, and there called Little
Stapledge, on which there was plenty; and Birchwood had some clusters of
natural young oaks scattered about it.  The Acorn Patch was well
filled with thriving young oaks about 25 years old.  The same Act
likewise directed that the contemplated plantations should be marked out
under the supervision of not less than six Commissioners, who were named as
follows:—

The connexion with the Forest of two of these gentlemen, viz. Lord
Glenbervie as Surveyor-General, and Mr. Machen as Deputy-Surveyor, dates
from this period; and to their joint exertions, aided by the official
labours of Mr. Milne, his Lordship’s excellent secretary, and at p. 90length one
of the three Commissioners of Woods, &c., the existing enclosures owe
their formation as well as their present promising condition; but
especially to Mr. Machen is the credit due, as being the result of his able
and conscientious management of the Forest for well nigh half a
century.

With a prospective reference to the plantations shortly to be made, the
most laudable pains were taken by Lord Glenbervie to ascertain the best
mode of planting and raising the young trees.  He truly remarks that
“the space of nearly 100 years must elapse before the success or
failure of any plan adopted in the cultivation and management of oak timber
for the navy can be clearly ascertained, during the whole of which time a
persevering attention and uniformity of system in the execution of the plan
adopted would be equally requisite, in fact through a succession perhaps of
three or four generations.”  His Lordship made extensive
inquiries whether acorns or plants should be first used, or rather some of
each; what was the best age and size for transplanting; if plants or trees
of any other kind should be set with them, or in places where oaks would
not thrive; at what distance apart should they be planted; ought the soil
to be cleared or dug, or how prepared; are the old trees to be removed, and
the stumps of oak or beech suffered to remain?

On the 23rd of July, 1808, the general principle agreed upon in these
respects was, “to plant an intermixture of acorns and oak-trees, with
a very small proportion of Spanish chesnuts; so that, if either the acorns
or young oaks should succeed, a sufficient crop might be expected, and to
plant no trees of any other sorts, except in spots where it should be
thought that oaks would not grow, and which it might be necessary to
include, in order to avoid the expense of fencing, or for shelter in high
and exposed situations.”  The first enclosures were planted
agreeably to this method, only afterwards it was found necessary to set
young oaks instead of acorns, few of these only coming up.

Lord Glenbervie also interested himself in some p. 91experiments for testing
the transplanting of young trees of various ages, selecting Acorn Patch in
the centre of the Forest for the purpose.  The annexed table, carried
on to 1846, gives the result:—

A. transplanted at 16 years of age }
B. transplanted at 23 years of age }  girth at 6 ft. from the
ground.
C. not transplanted at all        }

More as a satisfaction to the Government before making the new
plantations, than as a guide to the commissioners, most of whom knew the
Forest intimately, Messrs. Driver were now directed to examine the
condition and situation of the woods and woodlands, and to report
thereon.  They began by numbering the timber trees in succession, and
had reached 1,000, when the proceedings were put a stop to, on account of
the consumption of time and money which such an elaborate plan was found to
involve, and they briefly reported that the Forest seemed to contain 22,882
loads of oak timber, that only one third of the existing enclosures were
fully stocked, and that encroachments were rapidly spreading.

On the 15th of September in the ensuing year, 1809, the first meeting of
the above-named commissioners was held at Newnham, when 2,000 acres in
various parts of the Forest were selected for planting, and such directions
given that the 240 acres of White Mead Park were actually planted this
season, just in time to afford Mr. Fordyce the satisfaction of living to
know that the good work of renewing the Forest with oak, in accordance with
his recommendation made p. 92twenty years before, was in fact begun, for at
this date his useful life was brought to a close.

Referring to the list of licences granted by the Crown this year, 1809,
it appears that the first effort was now made to prepare the slag and
cinders from the iron furnaces for the use of the Bristol bottle-glass
manufacture, by reducing them to powder in a stamping mill, one of which
was erected at Park End by Messrs. Kear, under a licence dated 23rd of
September.  To this year also is to be referred the introduction of
tramways by two companies, designated “The Severn and Wye Railway
Company,” and “The Bullo Pill Company.”  The road
belonging to the former of them traverses the western valley of the Forest
from Lydney to Lydbrook, a distance of fourteen miles, and the latter the
eastern, but both communicating with the Severn, although at points six
miles apart.  The licence for the line ascending from Bullo Pill
describes it as designed to extend up to the Churchway engine, seven miles
off.  It was constructed under a private Act obtained by Sir James
Jelf and his partners.

In the course of the next year, i.e. 1810, the Enclosure
Commissioners authorized the construction of the following five
plantations:—

The planting of them was intrusted to Mr. Driver, upon his own plan,
which was to dig holes four feet apart every way, or 2,722 in an acre, and
to plant an acorn in every hole but the tenth, in it substituting an
oak-tree of five years old.  The holes for the acorns were dug fifteen
inches square and nine inches deep; but those for the young trees were made
eighteen inches square and twelve inches deep.  The acorns cost 8s.
per 1,000, p.
93and the trees 70s. per 1,000.  One tree out of every 100 was
a five years old Spanish chesnut.  So that planting the enclosures in
this way cost about £3 15s. per acre, and the seedlings about
£4 5s., which Mr. Driver was to mend over, and to keep the plants
good for three years.  The fences were to consist of a bank five feet
high, with a row of French furze at the top and bottom, or where
impracticable a dry wall instead.  The most flourishing timber in the
Forest at this period appears to have been that growing on Church Hill,
averaging 73 trees to the acre, each tree containing 58 feet of
timber.  The Severn and Wye Tramway, commenced last year, was extended
in this, with the addition of a line from Monmouth up to Howler’s
Slade.

In 1811 only one plantation, viz. “Crab-tree Hill,”
comprising 372 acres 2 roods 34 poles, was formed, and planted similarly to
the last; but the Enclosure Commissioners set out a considerable extent of
land to be taken in and planted.  On the 28th of November steam
engines were licensed to be erected at Birches Well, Ivy Moorhead,
“the Independent,” Upper Bilson, two at “the Old
Engine,” and two at “No Fold.”  In the next year
also two steam engines were licensed to be put up at Churchway Colliery,
and a third at “Strip-and-at-it” Colliery.  The following
enclosures were made in 1812, viz.—

These enclosures were not planted, however, like the former ones; since,
from the exuberance of weeds, and the ravages of mice, &c., that method
had failed, three-fourths of the acorns never appearing, and many of those
that did come up were too weak to make their p. 94way through the other
more luxuriant growth that overwhelmed and choked them.  But these
enclosures, according to a second agreement made with Mr. Driver, as
likewise all the future ones, were planted with seedling oaks instead of
acorns, care being taken to clear the holes once or twice, and only the
tenth trees were introduced as before.  The Buckholt was planted with
three years old oaks, from the woodmen’s nurseries.

The first general report of the Commissioners of Woods, &c.,
appointed under the Acts of 34th George III., c. 75, and 50th George III.,
c. 65, was made on the 4th of June, 1812, and was signed “Glenbervie,
W. D. Adams, Henry Dawkins.”

It says little respecting this Forest, merely alluding to it in common
with the other royal forests, as fitted to take its place in supplying
timber to the navy, which required 88,659 loads annually, a quantity so
large as to be equivalent to 1,000 acres of oak a century old.  In
their present state the Royal Forests could not supply a tenth part of this
amount, and would always be deficient unless 1,000 acres were planted every
year for the next 100 years, by which time the above quantity might be
annually felled.  Ere this year ended, the Enclosure Commissioners
concluded their labours of setting out the rest of the 11,000 acres in Dean
Forest.

The plantations made the ensuing year of 1813 were—

Permission was also given to the Severn and Wye Tramroad Company to
construct a branch to the colliery at the Ivy Moore Head, as well as to
Messrs. Protheroe to erect a steam engine at “Catch Can.” 
The area of the encroachments in the Forest in 1813, and which had at that
time been taken in more than twenty years, amounted to 1,610 acres 2 roods
18 poles, p.
95divided into 2,239 patches, on which were 785 houses, occupied by
1,111 persons.

In 1814 the three following extensive enclosures were made:—

The last of them, being the largest in the Forest, was not regularly
planted, but left for the most part to natural growth.

It was during this year especially, but to a certain degree also in the
preceding and succeeding ones, that this Forest and the New Forest were
visited with an enormous number of mice.  They appeared in all parts,
but particularly in Haywood enclosure, destroying a very large proportion
of the young trees, so much so that only four or five plants to an acre
were found uninjured by them.  The roots of five years old oaks and
chesnuts were generally eaten through just below the surface of the ground,
or wherever their runs proceeded.  Sometimes they were found to have
barked the young hollies round the bottom, or were seen feeding on the bark
of the upper branches.  These mice were of two kinds, the common
long-tailed field mouse, and the short-tailed.  There were about fifty
of these latter sort to one of the former.  The long-tailed mice had
all white breasts, and the tail was about the same length as the body. [95] 
These were chiefly caught on the wet greens in the Forest, and the
short-tailed were caught both on the wet and dry grounds.

A variety of means were resorted to for their destruction, such as cats,
poisons, and traps, but with little success.  A Mr. Broad, who had
been employed by the Admiralty, and had been successful, in killing the
rats and mice in the fleet, was sent down, and tried several plans, all of
which failed.  At last, a miner living on Edge Hills, named Simmons,
came forward, and said p. 96that he had often, when sinking wells or pits,
found mice fallen in, and dead, in consequence of their endeavours to
extricate themselves, and he had little doubt that the same plan would
succeed in the Forest.  It was tried, and holes were dug over the
enclosures about two feet deep, and the same size across, and rather
hollowed out at the bottom, and at the distance of about twenty yards
apart, into which the mice fell, and were unable to get out again. 
Simmons and others were employed, and paid by the numbers of tails which
they brought in, which amounted in the whole to more than 100,000.  In
addition to this it may be mentioned that polecats, kites, hawks, and owls
visited the holes regularly, and preyed upon the mice caught in them; and a
small owl, called by Pennant, Strix passerina, never known in the Forest
before or since, appeared at that time, and was particularly active in
their destruction.  The mice in the holes also ate each other.

Four more steam engines were allowed to be erected about the close of
this year at Palmer’s Flat and at Hopewell.

Proceeding to the following year, we find that in 1815 the number of
plantations was increased by the addition of—

Two years before this time the Admiralty had called the attention of the
Commissioners of Woods, &c., to the most proper means of improving the
durability of oak timber, which had always been supposed to be best secured
by its being felled in winter, although, owing to its involving the loss of
the bark, the practice had not become general.  To avoid such loss it
was determined, on the 15th of March this year, that the bark should be
stripped in the spring from the p. 97trees standing, leaving them to be felled in
the ensuing or some subsequent spring, five shillings per load being
allowed for the additional trouble occasioned thereby.  But this
determination was not formed without careful investigation and
experiment.  Thus in the previous year (1814) thirty trees were marked
and set apart in each of the Royal Forests, “which were divided into
five classes: three of the classes were stripped standing, but with some
variety in method, and left to be felled in winter; the second class was
felled, but left with the bark on; and the third felled, and then
immediately afterwards stripped in the usual way.”  But the
results of these different methods are not stated.

Licences to erect machinery were granted in the preceding year to
Messrs. Kear for a waterwheel at Park End in connexion with a mill for
pounding slag from the iron furnaces, and to Mr. Mushet for a steam engine
at Deepfield, and to Mr. John Protheroe for an engine at Whitelay Colliery;
and in the present year two steam engines were licensed at Upper Bilson by
Mr. Thomas Bennett, and one at Smith’s Folly by Mr. Glover.

In the course of the succeeding year (1816) the last of the enclosures,
as set out by the commissioners appointed under the Act of 1808, were
completed, viz.—

The second report of the Commissioners of Woods, dated the 18th of May,
and signed by Wm. Huskisson, Wm. Dacres Adams, Henry Dawkins, states
“that 9,389 acres of this Forest had been enclosed and planted, the
remaining 1,611 acres, making up the 11,000, being partly fenced, and would
be shut in the next year, viz. 1816, making the total number of enclosures
upwards of thirty.  Besides which 240 acres p. 98of Whitemead Park had
been appropriated (1809) to the growth of timber, as also 120 acres
adjoining the different lodges, as well as 120 acres of the open Forest,
where trees twenty-five or thirty feet high had been planted, and were
doing very well.  The cost of these operations, since 1808, was
£59,172 5s. 10d.”

To this period belongs the interesting circumstance of the then Bishop
of Gloucester, the excellent Dr. Ryder, paying his first official visit to
the Forest, for the purpose of consecrating Christ Church at Berry
Hill.  The building was commenced, in 1812, as a chapel schoolroom, by
the Rev. P. M. Procter, the Vicar of Newland, assisted by the Duke of
Beaufort, the Lord Bishop, and Mr. Ryder his secretary, aided by £100
from the National Society, being the first grant made by it.  But the
structure was enlarged to twice the original size previous to its
consecration.

The next year (1817) the Bishop had the satisfaction of being called
upon in the month of April to repeat his visit to the Forest, for the
purpose of dedicating the Church of the Holy Trinity, on Quarry Hill, to
divine worship, for which it was first used on the previous 5th of
February, having been commenced the summer before.  Its erection was
principally accomplished by the exertions of the Rev. H. Berkin, assisted
by contributions from the Earl of Liverpool, the Right Hon. N. Vansittart,
the Duke of Beaufort, Lord Kenyon, Lord Calthorpe, W. Wilberforce, Esq.,
M.P., and other benevolent persons.  The site, comprising five acres,
was given by the Crown.

On the 15th of May this year the purchase of Lord Viscount Gage’s
estate, adjoining the Forest and the Wye, was concluded, as stated in the
Commissioners’ Report, which appeared on the 18th of June.  It
contained 2,229 acres of wood, which, “if preserved, would (they
said) very soon be stocked with a succession of trees of the first quality,
as they were of the most thriving description, the oldest being from sixty
to eighty years old.”  The whole property contained 4,257 acres
15 poles, and, including all the timber p. 99and underwood, with
certain forges, mills, limekilns, iron and tin works, was valued by the
referees at £155,863 3s. 2d., the timber being prised at
£61,624 4s.  This agreement was confirmed by Act of Parliament,
57 George III., c. 97, which authorized the raising of the money by sales
of Crown property to the amount of £101,945 6s. 3d., with the view of
enabling the purchase money to be paid by five equal yearly
instalments.  A corn-mill, two forge-houses with appendages, the tolls
of the Coleford Market-house, and about 423 acres of arable or meadow land,
were sold for the most part at higher prices than were given for them,
leaving 2,925 acres for the growth of timber.

On tracing the history of this property as far back as existing records
permit, it appears that “the High Meadow Estate,” although
naturally included in the district constituting the Crown property of the
Forest, had been at remote period detached from it as appears by the
perambulations of 28 Edward I., with which the bounds of the shires of
Gloucester and Monmouth here coincide.  Its ancient village church,
partly of Norman architecture, and its still more antique font, apparently
Saxon, sufficiently attest the early location of inhabitants on the
spot.  This estate constituted one of the ten bailiwicks of the Forest
as early as 10 Edward I. (1282), when it was held by John Walden, called
John de Staunton, by the service, as the Rev. T. Fosbroke has ascertained,
“of carrying the King’s bow p. 100before him when he
came to hunt in the bailiwick, and by homageward and marchat,” and
“he had for his custody housbote, heybote, of every kind of tree
given or delivered by the King; all broken oaks, and all trees of every
sort thrown down by the wind.”  After passing through the
families of the Baynhams, Brains, Winters, and Halls, who purchased the
manor of English Bicknor early in the 17th century, it became by marriage
the property of Sir Thomas Gage, created Viscount Gage of Castle Island, in
the county of Kerry, and Baron Gage of Castlebar, in the county of Mayo,
September 14th, 1720.  It must also be noticed, that licences were
issued this year for the erection of steam-engines at “No Coal”
and at “Churchway Coal” Mines.

The following minute and interesting account of the state of the several
plantations in the year 1818 is by permission abstracted from Mr.
Machen’s private papers.

Speaking of the Buckholt (one of the older enclosures), he
observes—

“The large timber in it has been cut, and parts of it planted with
young oaks, obtained from places where they had sprung up spontaneously,
but it is still imperfectly stocked.  Stapledge (another of p. 101the earlier
plantations) has been filled up by transplanting from the thick parts, and
is tolerably well stocked on the whole.  Birchwood (the third of the
previous enclosures) has been planted in the vacant parts, and is fully
stocked and very flourishing.  From the Acorn Patch (the last of the
old plantations) a large quantity of young oaks have been transplanted into
the open parts of the Forest and the upper part of Russell’s
Enclosure.  The trees drawn out are thriving, and many of them grow
faster than the trees remaining in the Acorn Patch.  There is a great
quantity of holly and other underwood scattered on the parts where the
trees are planted, and which serves for shelter and protection, and the
soil is very good.  The trees, though never transplanted before, came
up with bunches of fibrous roots; and though of so large a size, being from
10 to 25 ft. high, scarcely any of them failed.  Several experiments
were tried as to pruning closely, pruning a little, and not at all; and it
appears that those pruned sufficiently to prevent the wind from loosening
the roots answer best, although many of those which were reduced to bare
poles, and had their heads cut off, are now sending up vigorous leading
shoots, and have every appearance of becoming fine timber: those unpruned
did not succeed at all.”  Alluding to the earthen banks, with
which the plantations were mostly surrounded, Mr. Machen observes that
“In most parts they appear to succeed very well, and the furze on the
top of them grows very luxuriantly; but in some places, and those where the
bank of mould has accumulated by being washed there in floods, the banks
are mouldering, and in the last two years hawthorn-quick has been planted
in those parts, and now looks very flourishing.  There has not been a
good year of acorns, that is, where a quantity have ripened in the Forest,
since the commencement of the plantations until the present, and the trees
are now loaded, and with every prospect of ripening.  The young trees
in all the new enclosures are looking remarkably well this year, and some
of them have made shoots so long that they more resemble willows than
oaks.  The six first-named enclosures, in addition to the acorns and
five years old oaks, have had the same quantity of five years old oaks
planted in addition, in lieu of the mending over, viz. 270 on an acre; but
there are parts of all these, and almost the whole of Crab-tree Hill and
Haywood, which suffered not only from the failure of the acorns, but from
the ravages made by the mice, that will require to be filled up as soon as
there is a stock of plants sufficient for the purpose. 
Russell’s Enclosure is left to nature: only 10,000 Spanish chesnuts
have been planted in it, and some young oaks from the Acorn Patch at the
north end.  There is a good deal of large timber over the whole,
particularly the south and centre parts, and a vast quantity of natural
young oaks sprung up in the neighbourhood of the large trees.  The
fern has been cut to relieve and encourage them for the last three
years.  The Lea Bailey Copse (north) consists of young copsewood well
stored with oaks, growing on their own butts.  The Lea Bailey Copse
(south) has more large timber in it: this has not been regularly planted,
but p.
102some trees have been transplanted from the thick parts of the
north copse, and from the woodmen’s nurseries.  The lower Lea
Bailey Enclosure has a considerable quantity of growing timber in it, and a
large quantity of young oaks springing up.  No planting has been done
here.  The fencing round these consists of a large ditch and bank, and
a dead hedge at top, with hawthorn-quick planted within.  The hedge
having stood three years is decayed, and another will be required this
year, which it is expected will last until the quick becomes a fence. 
The addition to the Buckholt of about fifteen acres was planted with 3
years old oaks from the woodmen’s nurseries, and looks very
thriving.  All the other enclosures were planted with seedlings and
tenth trees, according to the second agreement with Mr. Driver, in 1812,
13, 14, and 15, and are this year looking very well.  Parts of all the
enclosures will require mending over, but I should think more than half are
sufficiently stocked with oaks well established, and that will require no
further attention until they want thinning.  On the high land of
Haywood, Edge Hills, and Ruerdean Hill, firs and a mixture of other trees
have been planted, and are thriving and growing fast, particularly on
Ruerdean Hill, where the Scotch and larch take the lead.  Firs,
&c., have also been planted in the wet and bad parts of most of the
other enclosures, and succeed.  The nurseries we have in cultivation
are the Bourts, 161 acres; Yew-tree Brake, about 5 acres; Ell Wood, 11
acres; and about 26 in the Vallets, or middle, and Sallow Vallets
Nurseries, previously occupied by Mr. Driver.  In these there are now
about four millions of young oaks, three, two, and one year old, and about
600,000 firs and other trees of different sorts.  The plants in
Whitemead Park are thriving very well in all parts which are situated at a
distance from the brook, but near to it they are very thin, stunted, and
unhealthy, and are constantly killed down by spring frosts.  Ash and
fir trees have been planted amongst them, but with little success at
present.  The principal part of the large timber now in the Forest is
about Park End, on Church Hill, Ivy More Head, Russell’s Enclosure,
Park End Lodge Hill, and at the Lea Bailey.  That at the Bailey
appears younger, and some of it shook by frost, and rather drawn up by
standing too thick.  The timber about Park End is very fine, and I
should suppose from 150 to 200 years old.  There is a considerable
quantity of young oak, from 15 to 40 years old, about Tanner’s Hill,
&c., near Gun’s Mills, on the outside of Edge Hill Enclosure, and
some within it in the lower part.  Chesnuts Enclosure is covered with
hazel, that was cut down when the oak was planted, and is now growing up
with the young oaks and chesnuts, both of which are more rapidly growing in
this enclosure than in any other; a double quantity of chesnuts are planted
in this enclosure.  There are scarcely any natural trees in the Forest
but oak and beech; birch springs up spontaneously in every enclosure, and
overruns the whole Forest.  The few ash trees look scrubbed and
unthrifty.  Since the year 1809, 14,260 oak trees containing 14,546
loads of timber have been felled, viz. 11,322 trees p. 103for the navy, and
2,938 sold by auction.  About 50 trees, containing about 50 loads,
have been blown down or stolen.”

This year, 1818, Mr. Trotter obtained the permission of the Crown to
erect steam engines at Vallets Level and Howler’s Slade, and in the
following year the first corn mill was constructed at Cinderford, by Mr.
Brace, out of an old water-wheel, and the adjoining buildings.  In the
year 1819 also, through the exertions of the Rev. H. Poole, the small
chapel at Coleford, erected there in the reign of Queen Anne, was taken
down, and a building more equal to the religious wants of the place was
erected, and duly set apart for Christian worship, by Bishop Ryder, on the
18th of January, 1821.

The Third Triennial Report of the Commissioners of Woods was issued on
the 18th of June, 1819.  It states that three portions of land had
been granted in trust for church purposes to the Lord Bishop of Gloucester,
Lord Calthorpe, and the Right Honourable Nicolas Vansittart, one piece
being attached to Christ Church, Berry Hill, a second to Holy Trinity
Church, and the third for a proposed church at Cinderford.  It also
affirms that the whole of the 11,000 acres specified in the Acts for
enclosing the Forest had been taken in and planted, and that the
plantations were generally in a very flourishing state, comprising with the
recent purchases 14,335 acres, the whole of which lands were, from the
nature of the soil and the conveniences of water-carriage, probably better
adapted for that purpose than any other tract of land in the kingdom lying
together and of equal extent.  The report concludes by alluding to the
efforts which the commissioners had been making to induce such parties as
occupied encroachments on the Forest to accept leases for thirty-one years,
at an almost nominal rent, with the view of effecting the ultimate
restoration of these lands to the Crown, but regrets that so liberal a
proposal had been refused by nearly all; nevertheless further steps were
about being taken in the matter.

The following particulars relating to this period are p. 104abstracted from Mr.
Machen’s Memoranda:—“29th May, 1819.  The frost was
so severe that the verdure around White Mead, and throughout all the low
parts of the Forest, was entirely destroyed.  There was not a green
leaf left on any oak or beech, large or small, and all the shoots of the
year were altogether withered.  The spruce and silver firs were all
injured: in short all trees but Scotch fir and poplar suffered
severely.—August 10th.  The plantations had recovered from the
effects of the frost—the oak more effectually than the beech, and had
made more vigorous and thriving shoots than I ever saw.  We measured
several shoots in Serridge and Birchwood more than five feet long, and one
in the Bailey Copse seven feet.  We measured an oak planted in
Whitemead Park near to the W. hedge, and in the second field planted below
the house, seventeen feet six inches high: Lord Glenbervie was
present.  Shutcastle in the upper part, and the eastern part of
Serridge, were looking best of all the new plantations, though all appear
in a very thriving state this year.”  From the same source we
learn that Ellwood, purchased from Colonel Probyn, and containing 110
acres, was planted this year.  The holes were dug four feet apart in
rows, and five feet between the rows.  The trees planted were 30,000
Scotch firs, 1,600 pineasters, 3,600 larch, 6,000 Spanish chesnuts, 120,000
oaks of three and four years old, and 4,500 seedling oaks planted by way of
experiment in one corner of the large field on the south side of Ellwood,
and with no large plants amongst them.  A few of the enclosures had
oaks planted in them also, viz.-

and some more, from each of the woodmen’s nurseries in their
respective enclosures.

In the spring of 1820, 15,000 Scotch firs were planted in Ellwood, in
the place of those that died.  During the autumn and the following
spring, about two million p. 105trees, which had been raised in the different
Forest nurseries, were also planted out to mend over the different
enclosures, viz.—

Under the usual official permission, the Howler Slade Colliery was
connected, by a tramway 350 yards in length, with the Severn and Wye
Railways at Cannop, and Mr. J. Scott was permitted to lay down 102 yards of
tramway to his coal-works at the Moorwood, and Mr. Thomas Phillips to put
up a steam engine at the Union Colliery, in Oaken Hill Enclosure. 
There was also another tramway extension by the Bullo Pill Company to the
Folly and Whimsey Collieries at the head of the Dam Pool.  A junction
was effected in 1823 between the Severn and Wye, and the Bullo Pill
Tramway, by means of the Churchway Summit, parallel to Serridge, thus
connecting the eastern and western lines of traffic.

In the year 1822 the consecration of the third of the Forest Churches,
St. Paul’s, for which a site had been given by the Crown on
Mason’s Tump, at Park End, took place on the 25th of April, Bishop
Ryder attending.

The Fourth Triennial Report of the Commissioners of Woods, dated 1823,
intimates disappointment at the p. 106little growth made by the new plantations, now
eight or nine years old; but, on the other hand, it was observed that
“they were doing well, and that slowness of growth was inseparable
from their nature, particularly at that age.”  We learn from Mr.
Machen’s Notes that at this time, and again in the two succeeding
years, very severe frosts, in one instance as late as the 23rd of June,
greatly injured the young trees, more especially such as grew in low, moist
situations, although in some degree it also touched those on higher
lands.

The property known as “the Great Doward Estate” was
purchased by the Crown, in 1824, from the Miss Griffins, for
£15,000.  Although separated by the river Wye, and situated in
Herefordshire, and never before included within the limits of the Forest,
it certainly groups with the High Meadow Woods, clothing the same valley;
and it moreover forms a definite part of the geological basin of the
district.

In March, 1825, the well-known and prosperous Nelson Colliery was
commenced by Messrs. Bennett and Meek.  A branch line of tramway was
also made up to Mr. Mushet’s Mine, near the Shute Castle Hill
Enclosure, from the Severn and Wye line at Park End.

In each of the seasons of 1824–25 and 1825–26, Mr. Machen
states that about 500 acres of the High Meadow property was planted with
oak, Scotch fir, and larch, in proportions varying with the nature of the
soil and openness of the situation.  In the parts where shelter was
most requisite, two-thirds of fir and one-third of oak were planted, in
others half of each, and in sheltered situations oak alone.  A great
many of these plants perished in the spring and summer of 1825 from heat
and drought, and still more in 1826, which was the driest spring and summer
ever remembered.  In some high and shallow parts nearly every tree
died; a great many also were eaten off and destroyed by the hares and
rabbits.  There were now 3,000 acres of wood on the High Meadow
estate, viz. 2,000 acres of old woods, and 1,000 acres lately
planted.  In the year last mentioned the Fifth Triennial Report of the
Commissioners of Woods, &c., p. 107was issued, signed by
Charles Arbuthnot, Wm. Dacres Adams, and Henry Dawkins.

By the spring of 1827 Mr. Edward Protheroe effected the opening of
collieries at Ivy Moore Head, Park End Main, Park End Royal Pits, and at
Birch Well, at most of which pumping and winding engines were put up, a
tramway 1,500 yards in length connecting them with the main road of the
Severn and Wye Company.  The same year saw a reduction of the landed
property of the Crown by the sale of its rights in the Fence Woods, Mawkins
Hazels, and Hudnalls, comprising a total of 1,273 acres 3 roods 9 poles,
for £925.  The Crown’s right in Hudnalls, although it
contained 1,200 acres, was of little value, as the inhabitants of St.
Briavel’s had the right of cutting wood on it.

Passing over the next year, the earliest circumstance in order of time
is the opening of the important colliery at Crump Meadow, and the
construction of 1,200 yards of tramway, uniting it with the main line of
the Bullo Pill Company above Cinderford, all which was executed by Mr.
Protheroe.

We next find, under the date of March 16th, 1829, Mr. Machen
observing—“Although the Scotch firs have succeeded so well as
nurses for the oaks, and have brought them forward, making them healthy and
thriving on land that without shelter would only have produced them stunted
and unthrifty, yet I am inclined on the whole to prefer larch.  They
are a shelter available for the purpose, although not so complete; but by
that means the oaks are not kept too warm and brought too forward, and the
larch is more valuable in itself.  In some of our cold valleys,
however, the larch will not grow, the spring frosts cutting them
off.”  He also remarks—“We are now planting the oaks
by the side of the road from ‘Jack of the Yat’ to Coleford Lane
End, those at the White Oak, and opposite the Buckholt, and those leading
to Eastbatch, having been planted in 1827 and 1828.  The space of road
left is about fifty feet.  Most of the trees are brought from the
Vallets Enclosure, and do not p. 108cost more than four pence each to replant
them.  They are twelve to fifteen feet high, and a man can carry about
two of them at a time.  We are also planting the Lodge Hill about York
Lodge, at the rate of 300 to an acre, leaving them without any
fence.”

Upon the 6th of June this same year the sixth and last of the
“Triennial Reports of the Commissioners of Woods,” &c.,
came out, signed Lowther, Wm. Dacres Adams, Henry Dawkins.

With reference to 1830, Mr. Machen’s note-book supplies the
following memoranda:—“2nd March, planted trees on each side the
road to Breem, also on the side of the Coleford Road below Bromley
Enclosure, and about Catchcan Coal-works, continuing the avenue down the
Long Hill, planting also the delves between Serridge and Sallow Vallets, at
a cost of about four pence per tree, no fences being put round them. 
We planted also in the Greens of Russell’s Enclosure.  Some
pineasters and larch were likewise planted on the old Quarry Mounts, by the
sides of the road leading from Park End to Coleford, as likely, if
successful, to produce a good effect.

“(March, 1831, all died; renewed March, 1834—these mostly
alive and flourishing.)”

“May 28th.—The most extraordinary blight is now upon the
trees that I believe ever was known: it is confined entirely to the oak,
and chiefly to the large trees, although in some parts it is extending to
the young plantations.  The whole of the High Meadow woods and great
part of the Forest, particularly Russell’s Enclosure, and where the
timber is thick, are entirely stripped of their leaves, and look as if fire
had passed through them.  Where a beech stands amongst them, it is
perfectly green, and the oaks all around quite brown.  The grubs and
their webs are so thick, that it is disagreeable to ride amongst the trees,
and like going into a net.”

On the 8th June, 1830, the First Annual Report of the Commissioners
under the 10th Geo. IV., c. 50, was issued.  It was signed by Lord
Lowther, Wm. Dacres p. 109Adams, and Henry Dawkins.  Mr. Machen
states in his Memoranda, that “this winter single trees were planted
on Breem Eaves; triple rows on Clearwell Meend, by the roads on Coverham,
on the Delves.  We mended over the spots that have failed in Oaken
Hill, Stapledge, Acorn Patch, Crab-tree Hill, Sallow Vallets (chiefly by
drawing out where the trees are too thick).  Most of the enclosures
are now quite filled up.”  And under date Nov. 1831, he gives
the following statement of the several plantations:—

p.
110CHAPTER VII.
a.d. 1831–1841.

Riots—Sessions of the Dean Forest
Commissioners relative to St. Briavel’s Court—Free
miners’ claims—Foreigners’ petition—State of the
woods—Perambulation—Rights of Commonage—Relief of the
poor—Free miners’ petition—Parochial
divisions—Fourth and Fifth Reports of the Dean Forest
Commissioners—Acts of 1838 and 1842—Award of the coal and iron
mines—Enclosures thrown open, and new ones formed—Provision for
the poor—Mr. Machen’s memoranda.

The year 1831 is chiefly remarkable for the riotous destruction
committed on the fences and banks of the enclosures, recorded by Mr. Machen
as follows:—“In May, 1831, several of the single trees planted
near Parkend, and on Breem’s Eaves, were wilfully cut off in the
night, and no discovery was made of the offenders.  In the end of May
a part of the wall of Oaken Hill Enclosure was thrown down in the
night.  When the workmen were rebuilding it, some of the colliers
passing by threw out hints that it would not stand long, and in one or two
instances horses and cattle were turned into the enclosures, and the
woodmen were told that they had been shut up long enough, and they ought to
be thrown open.  The gates of several plantations had been broken in
the night.  On Sunday the 5th of June I saw Henry and Richard Dobbes
pull away the bushes out of a gateway, and turn their cow into Cockshoots
Enclosure, and when I went and expostulated with them they said they had
been deprived of their rights long enough.  Warren James had for some
time been urging others to join him in the recovery of their rights, which
they considered to be usurped by p. 111foreigners, in whose
hands the principal coal-works of the Forest are, by purchase or lease from
free miners; and on the 3rd June he had a hand-bill printed, calling upon
all persons to meet and clear the Forest on Wednesday June 8th.  I
spoke to him on the 5th, and told him in the presence of numbers the folly
and danger of his proceedings; but he paid no attention, and said the
Forest was given up to them in Parliament the year before; that he had a
charter, which he would bring and show me.  I published a notice,
warning all persons not to join an unlawful assembly, and on Tuesday the
7th Mr. Ducarel and I issued a warrant to apprehend him; but it could not
be executed.  We swore in a number of special constables, and with the
woodmen mustered about forty at the scene of action where they were to
begin; but the rioters mustered nearly 200, with axes, &c., and began
their work of destruction about 7 o’clock, and we found it useless to
attempt to stop them.  They were soon joined by others, and supplied
with cider, and continued their work Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and
Saturday, in which time they destroyed nearly one-third of the fences in
the Forest, the reparation of which cost about £1,500.  On
Sunday military arrived, and they all dispersed.  Warren James was
apprehended and sentenced to transportation for life, and seven or eight
others to different periods of imprisonment from one month to two years. [111]  Those who escaped suffered by lying in the
woods and concealed where they could, and I believe all now repent and see
the folly of their conduct.  I suppose altogether nearly 2,000,
including children, were employed in the work of devastation.  None of
the trees in the enclosures were injured, and where the cattle and sheep
that were let in had eaten the grass in the drives and p. 112open places, they
went back into the unenclosed Forest, and would not remain amongst the
trees.  In 1838 a pardon was sent out to Warren James, but he is not
yet come home (June, 1839), and he has not written to any one.  (1848:
nothing heard of or from Warren James.”)

The above disturbance shows that an unsettled state of feeling existed
in the minds of the foresters with regard to certain supposed rights of
free-common, and which prevailed also on other points, such as the nature
and extent of the coal-gales, and the fact that the various works were fast
passing from the hands of the native free miners into those of the
foreigners; all which grievances a mischievous periodical called ‘The
Forester,’ published at Newnham, set forth in an exaggerated and
exciting manner.  Under such circumstances the Act of 1831 (1 and 2
Gul. IV., c. 12), authorizing the appointment of Commissioners to
investigate such complaints, was well timed.  The Commissioners were
instructed to ascertain the boundaries of the Forest and the encroachments
thereon; to inquire into the rights and privileges claimed by free miners
of the hundred of St. Briavel’s, the constitution, powers,
jurisdiction, and practice of the court held there, as well as respecting a
court called “the Mine Law Court,” and to report on the
expediency of parochializing the Forest.

It appears from the annual Report of the Commissioners of Woods,
&c., dated the 8th August, 1831, and signed by Lord Duncannon, Wm.
Dacres Adams, and Henry Dawkins, that no new works were commenced this
year, except the erection of a water-mill for grinding ochre, near Sowdley,
arising probably from the unsettled condition of the district.  It
states, however, that the Crown had created an endowment of £30 per
annum towards keeping the three existing churches of the Forest in repair,
the congregations using them being considered too poor to do so.

On the 21st January, 1832, the following gentlemen were appointed to act
as Commissioners of Inquiry under the late Act:—

  p.
113Robert Gordon, Esq., M.P., Kemble.
  Ebenezer Ludlow, Esq., Serjeant at Law.
  Charles Bathurst, Esq., Lydney Park.
  Edward Machen, Esq., Whitemead Park.
  Henry Clifford, Esq., Over Ross, Herefordshire.
  Clerk, Thomas Graham, Esq., Mitre Court, Temple.
  Surveyor, Mr. John Hosmer.

They held most of their sittings at the Bear Inn, in Newnham, although
they also sat occasionally at Coleford, the Speech House, St.
Briavel’s, and Westbury.  They were thus occupied most of the
days in the months of February, March, April, and September, in hearing
evidence “as to St. Briavel’s Court and Prison,” or
“as to making the Forest parochial,” or “as to the rights
and privileges claimed by free miners,” and “as to the rights
to open or work quarries.”

Of all these sections of inquiry, the only one which the Commissioners
found they could at this time bring to a close was that having reference to
St. Briavel’s Court, respecting which it appeared in evidence that
out of the 402 suits brought into it during the last twelve months, all but
five were for debts mostly under £5, to recover which a charge of
£6 or £7 might be incurred.

The prison attached to the Court is thus described:—“There
is only one window, which is 1 foot wide, and in a recess.  It does
not open.  The size of the room is 16½ feet by 17½ feet;
13 feet high; three corners cut off.  In one corner is the doorway,
2½ feet broad, but no door, leading into the passage about 6 feet
long, out of which the privy opens.  There is a door at the outer end
of the passage, and in it a hole which is considered necessary for
air.  The floor and ceiling are of wood, and in the former are several
crevices and holes.  There is a space between the ceiling of the
parlour beneath and the floor of the prison-room above, which is so filled
with fleas and dust that in summer time it cannot be got rid of by any
cleanliness.  The privy is a dark winding recess, about 6 feet from
front to back, taken out of the solid castle walls.  It leads to a
hole going down to the bottom p. 114of the building, which is always inaccessible
for cleaning, but which till six years ago had a drain from it into the
moat; the air draws up through it into the passage and room.  There is
no water within the prisoners’ liberty, and they are therefore
obliged to get some person to fetch it for them.  The Courtroom is in
a bad state.”

In consideration of these facts, the Commissioners in their Report upon
it, which was published 7th July, very properly declared that the said
Court was an evil, and required remodelling altogether, and they suggested
its conversion into a Court of Requests, in which the strict forms of law
might be dispensed with, parties appearing and being examined in person,
without the intervention of professional agents.  Its Commissioners
might comprise the Constable of the Castle of St. Briavel’s, the
verderers of the Forest, the magistrates of the neighbourhood, and about
thirty other persons, any two of whom, under the presidency of one of the
former, should form a Court, and decide cases of debt from 10s. to
£10, with power to direct payment of the debt by p. 115instalments, or
levies upon goods on failure of payment, there being no imprisonment of the
person except for fraud, which should then take place in the county gaol at
Little Dean, where, or at Coleford, the Court should meet the first Monday
in every month.  Such was the purport of the Report the Commissioners
made to Parliament on the 7th July in this year.

The Fourth Annual Report of the Commissioners of Woods, &c., dated
the 28th of August, 1832, states that Messrs. Hill had obtained the
permission of the Crown, under a lease for thirty-one years, and a rental
of £25, to remove all that they could find of the slag, cinders, and
refuse of the ancient ironworks; thus resuming an occupation which had been
discontinued for many years.  The new Fancy Pits were now furnished
with two engines and we also find that for a time timber ceased to be
supplied from this Forest to the Royal Dockyards.

The Dean Forest Commissioners resumed their sittings the next year
(1833) on the 12th of April at Newnham, and proceeded to hear further
evidence “as to the rights and privileges claimed by free
miners;” but the only p. 116important occurrence which ensued was the
presentation of a “Memorial,” by Mr. Mushet, on behalf of
parties not free miners, specifying the claims which such proprietors and
occupiers of coal and iron mines in the Forest had to the support of
Government in maintaining their position in the district.  The
Memorial states that “foreigners” had possessed coal and iron
mines time out of mind, as appeared by the case of several gentlemen and
freeholders of the parish of Newland, who, as long since as the year 1675,
claimed the right to open certain works without any objection being made by
the free miners, a liberty which, whenever it was acted upon, seems always
to have benefited the public; that none of the documents of the Mine Law
Court appear to exclude foreigners from working the mines; on the contrary,
the Resolutions of that Court, passed 1775, establish such a right,
allowing the free miner to sell or bequeath his property in the mines to
any persons he may think proper; that the old gale-books contain the names
of many persons not free miners, which, with similar testimony from Messrs.
Tovey, James, &c., showed such to have been the uniform practice for
sixty years; that the foreigners have always carried on their works with
the full knowledge and authority of the Crown; that the free miners do not
possess the necessary capital for carrying on the works, in which the
foreigners have invested £700,000; and, lastly, that the Crown has
gained several thousand pounds per annum in consequence.  Twenty-one
persons signed this Memorial, as also the representatives of the Forest of
Dean and the Cinderford Iron Companies.

Another Memorial was likewise presented by a dozen of the inhabitants of
the Forest, showing that, instead of their cottages and gardens tending to
throw a burden on the adjoining parishes, the very contrary was the case,
as many were therefore enabled to support themselves without applying to
those parishes.  The petitioners also prayed that no further part of
the Forest might be enclosed for the supposed benefit of the adjacent
parishes, as thereby many persons would be p. 117deprived of
grazing-land for their cattle, and in consequence be necessitated to apply
to the next parishes for assistance.

Alluding to the state of the woods at this time (1833), Mr.
Machen’s Notes, under the date of the 29th of May,
state:—“This is now the fourth year in which the blight has
been so prevailing upon the oak and in the Forest.  I think this year
it is worse than ever, and now the young plantations suffer most, the large
timber being comparatively free.  Park Hill, Oaken Hill, Nag’s
Head, Barn Hill, Stapledge, &c., and especially all the higher parts of
them, are leafless, except where a beech or a chesnut shows its green
foliage amidst the brown oaks.  I saw a few rooks in Russell’s
to-day, and last year I noticed great numbers.  They seem to be drawn
to the Forest to feed on the grubs, for they are not generally here, and I
only hope they will increase.  The woodmen complain that in some
situations the running of the bark has been checked; but considering it has
now been four years, it seems wonderful that more injury is not done to the
trees: they put out new leaves at the midsummer shoot, and appear to
recover.  June 4th: found the grubs changed into a chrysalis, enclosed
in a leaf, with a kind of web round it.  June 18th: the moths appeared
in vast numbers.  The rooks are still about in Park Hill.”

The usual Report to Government, being the fifth annual one, was issued
on the 28th August, 1833, signed “Duncannon, W. D. Adams, B. C.
Stephenson.”  Licence was granted to construct 600 yards of
tramway from the Severn and Wye line up to the Church Hill Colliery at Park
End, and the Dean Forest Commissioners appointed under the Act of
Parliament (1 & 2 Gul. IV. c. 12) had their commission extended.

In the autumn of 1833 the Dean Forest Commissioners directed their
attention to the important object of settling the limits of the Forest, in
doing which they wisely determined to be governed by the Messrs.
Driver’s maps of 1787, according to which the Forest boundaries p. 118had for
a length of time been regarded as practically settled, comprising the soil,
timber, and herbage actually belonging to the Crown.  Its boundaries
as thus defined were perambulated in due ancient form, commencing on the
10th of September. [118]  The cavalcade included Commissioners
Robert Gordon, Esq.; Mr. Serjeant Ludlow; Charles Bathurst, Esq.; and
Edward Machen, Esq., the Deputy-Surveyor; with Mr. Graham, their Clerk; and
Mr. Hosmer, their Surveyor; followed by the keepers and woodmen. 
“We began” (writes Mr. Machen) “on Tuesday at Little
Dean, and ended at Breem; Wednesday we ended at Hoarthorns, Thursday at
Drybrook, Friday at the Stenders, and Saturday at Little Dean.  We
were occupied eight or nine hours each day, accomplishing about nine miles
daily by the map, but the actual distance must have been nearly
double.”

The year 1834 is marked by the Dean Forest Commissioners issuing their
second Report, dated 1st of May, in which, after briefly explaining the
data on which the late perambulation had been conducted, they proceed to
state that, as respects the various encroachments, 1,510 acres 2 roods 32
poles were taken in before 1787.  Since that date, and up to the year
1812, further encroachments to the extent of 573 acres 10½ poles had
been made, and again from 1812 to the present time 24 acres 2 roods
9½ poles had been taken in.  In consideration of the Crown
never having reclaimed the old encroachments, the Commissioners recommended
that all such lands “should be declared to be freehold of
inheritance,” provided no additional dwelling-houses were erected on
them without the licence of the Crown.  They advised that the next
oldest encroachments “should be granted to their present possessors
for three lives, not renewable except at the pleasure of the Crown, and
paying rents varying from one shilling to two shillings per
acre.”  As to the latest encroachments, they gave their opinion
that “their possessors should have terms varying from fourteen to
twenty-one years, paying rents p. 119varying from four to eight shillings per acre;
the condition as to building dwelling-houses to apply to these classes
also.”  The following table, showing the acreage of the
encroachments, classed as stated above, with the number of houses situate
in the six “Walks” of the Forest, serves to exhibit the
localities of the population of the district for the last hundred
years.

During the greater part of September this year the Dean Forest
Commissioners were engaged either at Newnham, Westbury, or the Speech-house
hearing evidence “as to forming the Forest into a Parish,” and
respecting “Rights of Common.”  With the design of
eliciting the opinions of the neighbourhood on the first head, for civil
purposes only, “a circular was drawn up on the subject of enclosing
lands on the outward boundaries of the Forest, with a view of relieving the
conterminous parishes from the support of the Forest poor.”  It
was sent to the parishes bordering on the Forest, requesting the attendance
of the clergymen, overseers, and landowners, for the purpose of discussing
such a plan.  This courteous invitation was responded to by the parish
authorities of Westbury, Flaxley, Little Dean, Mitcheldean, Awre, Staunton,
Ruerdean, the Lea hamlet, Bicknor, and St. Briavel’s, the Rev. H.
Berkin attending on the part of the Forest clergy, when the scheme of the
Commissioners was unanimously approved.  By the evidence taken under
the second head, p. 120it appears that the parishes or tithings of
Westbury, Little Dean, Awre, Ruerdean, Bicknor, Lea hamlet, Breem,
Clearwell, Newland, Lydney, St. Briavel’s, Newnham, Woolaston, and
Purton, claimed the right of Common of Pasture.

In the same month “the Free Miners of the Forest” presented
to the Commissioners an able memorial of their rights, in reply to that
preferred the year before by persons not free miners, but who were
proprietors and occupiers of coal and iron mines in the Forest; its object
being to prove that “foreigners possessing and working mines therein
was in direct violation of the rights and privileges of the free miners,
contrary to their customs and franchises, and are acts of injustice and
usurpation.”  They affirmed that the present usage of foreigners
possessing mines was not of long standing,—that it dated from the
discontinuance of the Mine Law Court in 1777, by which all such intrusions
were strictly checked and prevented; that this Court had been in full
operation upwards of 500 years, as they verily believed, and so continued
until the last 60 years, meeting periodically under the presidency of the
Constable appointed by the King, and attended by his deputies and by the
King’s Gaveller; and that, if this Court were re-established, and
their rights and privileges restored to them, there would be no difficulty
in finding capital for the proper working of the mines.  The memorial
was signed by 1,036 persons, professedly free miners.  But, as to this
being the fact, a further memorial was presented to the Commissioners on
the 23rd of December, urging “that no person should be considered a
free miner whose birth from parents free miners cannot be proved, in
addition to their having been born in the Forest, and worked in the mines a
year and a day.”  According to such rule, the original number of
1,036 would be reduced to 798.  On the 24th of December this year
(1834) another memorial, coming from free miners in the occupation of
stone-quarries within the Forest, was laid before the Commissioners,
pleading in few words for similar rights p. 121and customs in
respect of stone-quarries as were claimed in regard of mines.  The
names of thirteen quarrymen were attached thereto.

Upon the 9th and three following days of June in the ensuing year (1835)
the Dean Forest Commissioners, at meetings held in London, received letters
from the Bishop of the diocese, from the clergymen of the Forest, and of
the Lea and Flaxley parishes, recommending the parochializing the Forest
for ecclesiastical purposes, either by means of curates with small chapels,
or by dividing the whole into a certain number of distinct districts
severally provided with a church and an incumbent.  The Commissioners
reported unanimously in favour of making the Forest parochial; and for all
spiritual purposes they recommended an assignment of districts to each of
the churches already built, as also the erection of a church and parsonage
at Cinderford, with a stipend of £150 annexed, to which amount the
salaries of the three existing ministers should also be raised.  They
further recommended the enlargement of the Lydbrook school-room into a
chapel, with £80 stipend to the clergyman serving it; and they
likewise advised forming Viney Hill, having a population of nearly 800,
into a district, or annexing it to Blakeney, the church there, and
minister’s salary, being enlarged accordingly.  They also
suggested that the 150 persons residing on Pope’s Hill should be
united to Flaxley, with £20 added to the clergyman’s stipend;
and that the Lea Bailey, with its 100 inhabitants, should be annexed in the
same manner, and under the same conditions, to the Lea parish.

In the second place, as to the relief of the poor inhabitants of the
Forest, the Commissioners were of opinion that it would be impossible to
raise a fund for this purpose by means of rates on property, as so much was
in the actual occupation of the Crown, or connected with mining, or the
holders being too poor to bear the burthen.  They advised, therefore,
that about 1,600 acres of the Forest land should be enclosed and let out
for the purpose of furnishing such a provision, to be p. 122dispensed at the
discretion of a Board composed of the constable of St. Briavel’s
Castle, the verderers, clergymen, and deputy-surveyor, and the magistrates
acting for the Forest division, and six inhabitants as coadjutors. [122]

On the 25th of August the Dean Forest Commissioners presented their
fourth and fifth Reports.  In the former, which gives a minute summary
of the rights and privileges claimed by the free miners (derived chiefly
from the evidence taken in 1832), the origin of them is stated to be
involved in obscurity, although no doubt iron was manufactured in the
neighbourhood as early as the time of the Romans, and coal was obtained in
the reign of Edward III.  Probably before, and certainly soon after,
the Norman Conquest, the soil was vested in the Crown, and all the rights
of a royal forest were in force.  The persons by whom the mines were
then worked could not have been, in the first instance, free tenants of the
Crown.  It is more likely that they were in a state of servitude, and
subject, in that character, to perform the labour required of them. 
The name of “Free Miners,” by which they are and have been for
centuries known, seems to refer to some right or privilege distinct from
their original condition; and it does not appear unreasonable to suppose
that certain persons at some distant period, either by having worked for a
year and a day, or by reason of some now unknown circumstance connected
with the origin of the privilege, were considered as emancipated, and
thereupon became entitled or were allowed to work the mines upon their own
adventure, concurrently with or subject to the right of the Crown to a
certain portion of the product.

p.
123Noticing in succession many of the historical incidents attaching
to the free miners of the Forest, the Report states that the franchise of
the mine was unquestionably perpetuated by birth from a free father in the
hundred of St. Briavel’s, and afterwards working a year and a day in
one of the mines and abiding within the hundred.  Doubt is, however,
thrown upon the necessity of birth from a free miner, the more so as the
son of a foreigner could obtain his freedom after working out an
apprenticeship of seven years with a free miner; and it would be difficult,
if not impossible, at the present time, to confine the title to anything
beyond birth and service, to which particular class of individuals the
Court of Mine Law confined all mining operations.

Entering in the next place into a consideration of the actual claims of
the free miners, the Commissioners declare their opinion as to how their
claims are to be settled, suggesting at once the question “whether
they can be now maintained with advantage to the miners themselves, or to
the community,” connected as they are with a most defective system of
working, productive of incessant disputes and expensive litigation, and
occasioning constant disputes and never-ending jealousy; and they thus
conclude—“Taking all the circumstances of the case into
consideration, we are of opinion that the monopoly and customary workings
are practically at an end, and that, if individual claims were bought up,
the whole coal-field might then be let by the Crown as between landlord and
tenant, defining the limits and regulating the working.”

The fifth and final Report of the Dean Forest Commissioners bore the
same date as the preceding.  It contains the evidence produced before
them as to “certain claims of common of pasture” made by the
inhabitants of the following parishes bounding the Forest, and paying a
small sum annually, called “herbage money,” to the lessee of
the Crown of the manor and hundred of St. Briavel’s, and the manor of
Newland, as annexed:—

It is highly probable that the above claims, and the payments for the
ancient agistments, originated when the limits of the Forest comprehended
the parishes by which they are made.  The earliest authentic trace of
them occurs in the agreement made by Charles I. with Sir John Winter in
1640, according to which about 4,000 acres of Crown land was to be taken in
and attached to the bordering parishes in lieu of their rights of
commonage; and in conformity with the principle of this agreement, the
Commissioners recommended “that these commonable rights should be
comprised in some general arrangement for the purpose of a
commutation.”

The last subject the Commissioners notice is the stone-quarries, which
persons born within the hundred of St. Briavel’s claimed the right of
opening in the waste lands of the Forest, on payment of a fee of three
shillings to the gaveller, and an annual rent of three shillings and
fourpence, according to the custom of at least the last hundred years, a
period too long to justify the withdrawal of any existing gale, unless by
compensation.  Hence all that the Commissioners found themselves p.
125justified in recommending to the Crown, with the view of putting
the working of the stone-quarries on a better footing, was to re-issue
gales on liberal leases to all parties born within the hundred who applied
for the same within a specified time.

In bringing their labours to a close, the Commissioners urge the
necessity of passing an Act for definitively settling the several
particulars to which their inquiries had been directed, adding that it
would be well to incorporate the offices of Constable of St.
Briavel’s Castle, and Warden of the Forest, with the office of Woods,
lest they should be found to interfere with its future administration, at
that time under the charge of Lord Duncannon, B. C. Stephenson, Esq., and
A. Milne, Esq.; and this was accordingly done in the following year.

We gather from Mr. Machen’s memoranda that the nurseries in the
Forest at this time (1835) contained:—

and, moreover, that 276,054 trees of various kinds had been planted out
during the previous winter.

On the 27th of July, 1838, the Royal Assent was given to “an Act
for regulating the opening and working of mines and quarries in the Forest
of Dean, and Hundred of St. Briavel’s, by the agency of a Board of
Commissioners.”  Thomas Sopwith, Esq., of Newcastle-upon-Tyne,
was appointed by the Board of Woods and Forests a Commissioner for the
purpose on behalf of the Crown; and John Probyn, Esq., of Longhope
Manor-house, Gloucestershire, was selected by the body of free miners to
act on their behalf; and the office of arbitrator between them was filled
by John Buddle, Esq., of Wallsend, in the county of Northumberland; Thomas
p.
126Graham, Esq., acting as their solicitor, and Mr. Henry Ebsworth
as his clerk. [126]

Some idea may be formed of the necessity for such a mining Commission,
and of the difficulties it had to overcome, from the following particulars,
as Mr. Sopwith stated them in his valuable Paper on “Mining Plans and
Records,” read before the British Association at Newcastle in
1838:—“Great distrust of any interference” (he says)
“existed, and some of the mine-owners refused to allow of underground
surveys being made.  Numerous and conflicting parties were then
working mines under customs which were totally inapplicable to the present
state of mining; destructive at once to the interests of the free miners of
the Forest; ruinous, as sad experience had shown, to the enterprising
capitalist; and subversive of the rights of the Crown.  So great was
the perplexity, and so numerous and conflicting were the claims of
contending parties, that the law advisers of the Board of Woods deemed it
almost impossible to arrive at any satisfactory adjustment of them within
the period of three years, as named in the Dean Forest Mining Act. 
The ruinous and unsatisfactory state of the mines must appear obvious on a
slight consideration.  As no plans existed, it was impossible to tell
to what extent or in what direction the underground works were being
carried.  The crossing of mattocks, that is to say, the actual meeting
of the workmen underground, was often the abrupt signal for contention; the
driving of narrow headings was a means by which one coal-owner might gain
possession of coal which of right belonged to another; and a pit, though
sunk at a cost of several thousand pounds, had no secured possession of
coal beyond 12 yards round it, that is, a tract of coal 24 yards in
diameter.  At 40 or 50 yards from such a work another adventurer might
commence a pit, and have an equal right, if right it could p. 127be called,
to the coal.  If a long and expensive adit was driven, another one
might be commenced only a few yards deeper; and, from such a state of
things, it is quite clear that great uncertainty and frequent losses
inevitably ensued.”  Moreover, the receipts from mines and
minerals, by the Crown, upon the average of the six preceding years, were
only £826 2s. 10½d.

The important Act by which these difficulties were to be removed, under
the auspices of the three Commissioners above named, was framed in
accordance with the suggestion thrown out in the fourth Report of the Dean
Forest Commissioners, viz., that all subsisting mine-works should be
released by compensation to the Crown, and the whole relet on a
well-defined plan to such free miners as might make application for the
same.  The Act (1 and 2 Vict. cap. 43) provides that all male persons
born and abiding within the hundred of St. Briavel’s, being upwards
of twenty-one years of age and having worked a year and a day in a coal or
iron mine or stone-quarry within the said hundred, should alone have the
right to hold or dispose of such works, a register of all such persons
being kept as “free miners.”  It suppressed all claims to
pit timber, with all “customs,” and assigned to the
Commissioners under the Act the duty of fixing rents and royalties for
twenty-one years, and to the gaveller power to limit and regulate as well
as to enter and survey all works which might be re-awarded or galed. 
No engines were to be erected nearer than sixty yards to any enclosure,
within which only air-shafts might be opened, and all unnecessary buildings
were to be removed.

On the 16th of August, 1838, the annual Report of the Commissioners of
Woods was issued, signed by Lord Duncannon, B. C. Stephenson and A. Milne,
Esqrs.  It mentions that a piece of land in the parish of English
Bicknor had been granted for school purposes, and that the Severn and Wye
Tramway Company obtained the licence of the Crown to lay down a branch from
Brook Hall Ditches to Foxes Bridge.

The only circumstance requiring notice in the following p. 128year is the
decease of the second Commissioner of Woods, Sir B. C. Stephenson, who had
long held the office, and he was succeeded by the Honourable Charles
Gore.

The next annual Report bears date 29th July, 1840, and contains nothing
calling for special notice.

The year 1841 is particularly important in the history of the Forest
from its being the date of the present coal and iron mine awards, under the
authority of the Mining Commissioners, the former being signed on the 8th
of March, and the latter on the 20th of July.  By these awards no less
than 104 collieries were defined and assigned, together with twenty
iron-mines, and certain rules and regulations were laid down for working
them.

The duties of the Mining Commissioners having now closed, it must have
been highly gratifying to those gentlemen to receive from the Government
the following expressions of commendation, communicated by Mr. A.
Milne:—“I am to convey to you our entire approbation of the
zeal, ability, and sound discretion which appear to have marked all your
proceedings in the performance of the very important, difficult, and
laborious duties which devolved upon you, and their belief that, while the
result will be very beneficial to the interests of the Crown, it will be
attended with equal advantage to the great body of mining adventurers in
securing their titles to the property on very reasonable and moderate
terms, and subject to the regulations and conditions which seem to be well
calculated to protect them from that constant and expensive litigation
which had so long existed.”

The total cost of adjusting the working of the coal and iron mines was
£10,459 1s. 3d.  The valuable services of the Mining
Commissioners were again noticed in the annual Report of the Board of
Woods, published on the 9th August in the following year, when 408 acres 2
roods were thrown open in Blakeney Hill (south) and the South Lea Bailey
Copse, a similar extent of open Forest being enclosed at St. Low and Great
Kenseley.  It also adverts to an Act passed on 30th of July previous,
dividing the Forest into ecclesiastical p. 129districts,
constituting them “Perpetual Curacies,” and attaching the
churches of Christ Church, Holy Trinity, and St. Paul’s to them, the
stipends of each being raised to £150.  The patronage of the two
former was vested in the Crown, and the latter in the Bishop of the
Diocese.  The Act likewise authorizes the formation of a fourth
district at Cinderford, and the erection and endowment of a church there:
thus each district comprised the following number of acres:—

The same Report also notices the provisions now made for the relief of
the poor, and for the abolition of the court and prison of the hundred of
St. Briavel’s.  The Act for the relief of the poor is dated the
9th of July, and authorizes the introduction of the new Poor Law, dividing
the Forest into the two townships of East and West Dean, by a line drawn in
a diagonal direction from Lydbrook to Ayleford, being in fact almost the
same boundary which separated the ancient divisions of “above and
beneath the wood.”  The Act attached East Dean to the
Westbury-upon-Severn Union, and West Dean to that of Monmouth.  It
also united the Hudnalls, the Bearse, the Fence, and Mawkins Hazells to the
parishes of St. Briavel’s and Hewelsfield, Mailscot and an adjoining
tract to English Bicknor, and Walmore and Northwood’s Green to the
parish of Westbury-upon-Severn, for the support of their own poor, by means
of rates levied as their respective overseers for the relief of the poor
should direct.

p.
130CHAPTER VIII.
a.d. 1841–1858.

Messrs. Clutton’s, &c., Report on the
Forest timber—Viscount Duncan’s Committee—Supply of 1,000
loads of timber to the Pembroke Dockyard resumed—Mr. Drummond’s
Committee—Report of Mr. Brown—Messrs. Matthews’s
Report.

By this time (1842) some of the enclosures made in 1814 were become fit
for being thrown open, the young trees having grown up sufficiently, and
the following Commissioners, viz., Lord Lincoln, A. Milne, C. Gore, Sir T.
Crawley, J. Pyrke, M. Colchester, C. Bathurst, E. Machen, P. J. Ducarel, J.
F. Brickdale, Esqrs., proceeded to authorize the laying open of 163 acres 2
roods 24 poles in Little Stapledge and Birchwood, directing that an equal
quantity of land should be added to the Acorn Patch and the Bourts.

In the year 1843 Beechenhurst and Shutcastle Enclosures, comprising 467
acres 2 roods 31 poles, were disenclosed, an equal extent of land at the
Delves, Harry Hill, Hangerberry, Old Croft, the Blind Meand, Cleverend
Green, Clearwell Meand, and Birch Hill being taken in.  Upon the 22nd
of this October a sale was effected to the Crown, for the sum of
£1,260, of the eligible school premises at Cinderford, erected
originally by Mr. Protheroe for his workpeople.  On the 22nd of
October in the ensuing year, 1844, the church adjoining the school just
named, to the erection of which Dr. Warneford and Charles Bathurst, Esq.,
largely contributed, was consecrated by Bishop Monk, the Crown endowing it
with £150 per annum, making the total sum given by the Government to
church endowments in the Forest upwards of £10,347.  The
following year is almost a blank in the annals of the neighbourhood. 
The Report of the Commissioners of Woods was issued on the 5th of
August.

p.
131In 1846 enclosures to the extent of 1,433 acres 3 roods 5 poles,
comprising Blakeney Hill, Crab-tree Hill (North), Holly Hill, Bromley, part
of Edgehills, and part of Stapledge, were thrown open, and instead thereof
enclosures were made at Light Moor, Middle Ridge, and Phelp’s Meadow,
Blaize Bailey, Mitcheldean Meand (North, South), and Loquiers, the Delves
No. 4, Crump Meadow, Bourts No. 1 and 2, Eastbatch Meand, and Coverham
(North and South).  The Commissioners of Woods published their yearly
Report on the 25th of August this year, signed by Lord Morpeth.  It
states that since 1841 upwards of 291 pieces of encroached land had been
purchased by the foresters for £201 13s. 3d., and that no less than
193 grants of coal and iron mine had been galed under 1 and 2 Vict. c. 48,
at a total annual rent to the Crown of £3,783, in sums varying from
£1 to £250, as at the Bilson Colliery, besides 315 grants of
stone-quarries at a total rent of £87 9s. 7d.  This includes the
following coal-works lately galed, viz., the collieries of Nash’s
Folly, New Mill Engine, Unity Colliery, Nag’s Head, Smart’s
Delph, Gosly Knoll, producing a rental of £16, and the iron-mines at
Old Park, Scarpit, Easter, Slope Pit, Yew-tree, Bromley Hill, Drybrook,
Prince of Wales, Belt, and Wigpool, bringing £81 10s. to the Crown,
to all which receipts a royalty of so much per ton on the mineral sold was
added.

Mr. Machen’s Notes inform us that in the autumn of 1846
“there was the most abundant crop of Spanish chesnuts we have ever
had, and they ripen well, but the people injure the trees to get
them.  No acorns at all—there are some on the Turkey oaks. 
The fruit of most kinds has failed this year, as well as the potatoes; but
of some kinds, such as chesnuts, grapes, blackberries, the crop is
abundant.  The spruce firs are looking very bad; many of them are
nearly dead.”

Except as respects the granting of additional coal and iron gales, the
succeeding year of 1847 may be passed over.  It appears by the annual
Report which came out on the 29th of June, that the new iron-mines galed
were those of Wigpool, Dean’s Meand, Fairplay, Lydbrook, p.
132Symmond’s Rock, Earl Fitzharding’s Frog Pit,
Penswell’s, Eastbatch, and Tufton, paying a rental to the Crown of
£104, and Morgan’s Folly Colliery, rented at £4.

Proceeding to the year 1848, the Report of the Commissioners of Woods,
which appeared in September, informs us that upwards of 18,000 acres in the
district of the Forest were covered with wood and timber. 
Unfortunately blight again prevailed, of which in the month of June Mr.
Machen’s MS. records:—“The oak-trees have been attacked
for several years past by a small caterpillar which eats all the leaves,
and this year the destruction has been greater than ever; the whole Forest
has been almost leafless; the high ground and the low, the large timber and
the young plantations, have all suffered alike.  The first time I
noticed this blight was in 1830, when the High Meadow woods and many parts
of the Forest suffered, but it was principally confined to the large
timber.  It has continued more or less every year since, but this has
been the worst year of any; yet it is remarkable that the High Meadow Woods
are free from it and in fine foliage, but no part of the Forest has
escaped.  The grub, a little black caterpillar, comes to life just as
the oak is coming into leaf, and feeds upon the leaves.  It attacks no
other tree; the beech, chesnut, &c., stand in full verdure surrounded
by the brown and leafless oaks.  They envelop the tree in a web they
spin about the end of May; they enclose themselves in a leaf curled up, and
remain in a chrysalis state until the middle of June or July, when they
change into a pale greenish small moth that flies about the trees in
myriads, and lay their eggs in the bark of the trees for future mischief,
and then die.  There seems to be no means of checking their
ravages.  The rooks come in great numbers, and they and other birds
destroy great quantities.  The trees put forth a second foliage at the
midsummer shoot, but not full, and the shoot of the year and the growth of
the trees must be injured.”

Under the date of the 30th of April, 1849, Messrs. John Clutton and
Richard Hall report to the p. 133Government, on the Forest of Dean, that
“there are about five hundred acres of the open Forest now covered
with old timber, which is for the most part very fine and of very large
size, and is nearly all of good quality.  Our opinion is that a large
portion of this timber is fit for naval purposes, and we suppose it to be
worth £49,000.  Its precise age we are not enabled to discover,
but our impression is that this timber is about 160 years of age.  It
has clearly been planted since 1667, as it is recorded that only 200 trees
remained on the Forest in that time.  There is some old timber fit for
the navy in the enclosed plantations, of the probable value of
£34,500.  There are also about 500 acres of land planted in the
Forest with single trees, which are in process of becoming fit for naval
purposes; and there is a further portion occupied with trees of spontaneous
growth.  These, with the plantations thrown open, we estimate at 3,000
acres; the value of these we estimate at £106,000.  The Crown
has now occupied with young and old timber about 14,000 acres of the
Forest.”

The same reporters speak of “the existing plantations being in a
very good state, having been judiciously and well planted, fully stocked,
well managed, and sufficiently protected.  They are properly drained
and amply thinned; so that there is upon the ground, in a state to proceed
to maturity, as good a crop as can be found to exist in any part of
England, taking extent and quality of soil into consideration.  The
plantations reflect great credit upon all parties concerned in their
management, the system of which we should strongly advise to be
continued.  To remove the young trees with the view of converting the
land into arable cultivation would involve a loss of £280,500,
besides that of the increasing net annual profit, which official returns
prove to be as follows:—

p.
134Early in this year a select Committee of the House of Commons was
appointed to inquire into the expenditure and management of the Woods,
Forests, and Land Revenues of the Crown, Viscount Duncan being in the
chair.  Mr. Machen was examined by the committee with regard to the
Forest of Dean, and amongst other particulars stated that “the fact
of the expenditure on account of this Forest having increased within the
last six years was explained by the circumstance that £3,000 a year
had been laid out on the new plantations, and that the balance in favour of
the Crown had been still further reduced by the recent fall in the price of
bark and also of timber, owing probably to peculiar difficulties attending
its removal.”  He observed that large immediate profits could
not be obtained from the oak plantations, which would, however, increase in
value at the rate of about £15,000 a year; and moreover that a
considerable revenue from the sale of timber-props for the mine-works,
&c., might be expected.  Mr. Machen also reported an improvement
in the order and conduct of the inhabitants of the Forest generally, the
fruit, it may reasonably be assumed, of the many years of pious labour
which the clergy and Christian teachers of the neighbourhood had bestowed
on the people.  The Act of 1841, under which the mines of the Forest
were awarded, had, he said, been found most useful.  Before the
arrangements under this Act were effected, much quarrelling and litigation
were continually taking place.  The royalty paid by the various mines
to the Crown amounted to £4,000 a year, and was steadily increasing;
eight years ago it was only £700.

The evidence of Mr. Langham, the Assistant Deputy Surveyor, relates to
the mode in which pit-timber and cordwood for the charcoal burner were
supplied, as well as the method pursued in planting, being that of about
1,300 young oaks to the acre, and the same of larch, four feet apart. 
Mr. Nicholson, a tenant of the Park End Colliery, forcibly urged the
construction of branch lines of railway, connecting the different works in
the Forest p.
135with the leading lines, to the certain benefit of the
coal-master, the consumer, and the Crown, the existing tramways being
inadequate to their purpose.

Mr. Isaiah Teague took the same view, and further supported the
recommendation that greater facilities should be given, not only to the
mineowners to build cottages for their men, but also that the operatives
themselves should be enabled to buy small plots of land for the purpose,
they being now frequently obliged to live far distant from their places of
work, there being few, if any, houses situated near them.  These
witnesses, as well as several others, agreed in stating that it was
inexpedient to have deer in the Forest, as unsettling the habits of the
people, and encouraging poaching.  They yet admitted, however, that
the deer were highly ornamental.

It was also stated in evidence that the Forest was now fully planted;
and whereas some of the witnesses recommended that the larger portion of
the wood should be cut, and the remainder converted into arable or pasture
land, it was shown by others that to do so would be like cutting a crop of
wheat whilst green, and be defeating the original intention of the
Government, which was to raise timber for the use of the navy, which the
private woods of the kingdom could not supply.  Much, too, of the soil
was said to be unsuited for farming purposes, being so precipitous in some
parts, and stony in others, as to be unfit for ploughing.  Much of the
timber was reported to be of the finest character, and the young trees, for
the most part, doing very well.  No improvements in the management of
the estate were suggested, and at the close of the inquiry the committee
reported that the plantations were growing luxuriantly, having been well
thinned, and did credit to all concerned in their management.

The succeeding year of 1850 is chiefly noticeable for a general meeting
on behalf of the fund for defraying the expenses of the contemplated
Industrial Exhibition of all Nations, to take place the next year.  It
was held upon Wednesday the 12th of June, on the green in p. 136front of the
Speech-house, under the presidency of Mr. Machen, supported by the
magistrates and master-miners of the district.  The day was fine, and
at least 5,000 people attended—three bands of music accompanying them
from the different sides of the Forest.  A large waggon constituted
the platform on which the speakers stood.  The sight was a striking
one, amidst the fine foliage of the surrounding Forest, and all passed off
in a manner worthy of the occasion.

The Commissioners of Woods’ Report, dated the 27th of June this
year, informs us that gales of coal had been granted, under the names of
the Beaufort Engine, Oaken Hill, New Bridge, East Slade (lapsed), and the
Injunction Iron Mine—paying a total rental of £54.  In
November following this Forest contributed its quota of navy-timber,
amounting to 388 loads 22 feet, towards the total of 1,000 loads levied
upon the Royal Forests; which quantity was delivered at the Pembroke
Dockyard at the cost of £992. 8s. for carriage.  It may also be
mentioned that at the Gloucester Summer Assizes of this year the action of
Lord Seymour, as Chief Commissioner of Woods, versus Morrell, for
arrears of dead rent which accumulated to the amount of £1,291 1s.
2d., was tried before Lord Chief Justice Campbell and a special jury, when
a verdict was found for the Crown, subject to the opinion of the Court of
Queen’s Bench upon a special case, which proved, however,
confirmatory of the original decision.

On the 30th of July, 1851, the official Report on the Forest was
issued.  It gives us the dates of three grants of land made this
spring for school purposes, situated at Viney and Blakeney Hill, and at
Ruerdean Woodside.  It also bears fresh testimony to the satisfactory
working of the Act of 1 & 2 Vict., c. 43, for regulating the opening
and working of mines and quarries, the litigation to which they had
formerly given rise under the ill-defined and objectionable customs which
had so long prevailed having almost entirely ceased.  The actual
amount annually paid to the Crown during the last six years was stated to
be £4,281 17s. 4d., besides the profit p. 137made by the sale of
pit-timber.  Royalties and tonnage-dues were its chief sources,
although arrears of minimum or dead rent had accumulated to the extent of
£12,805 8s. 2½d.—payment having been refused in some
cases on the plea that at certain times no minerals had been raised. 
Gales of coal had been granted to Cousin’s Engine, Beaufort, and Fox
Hole; and during the previous year 335,687 tons of coal and 80,531 tons of
iron mine had been raised.  This autumn arrangements were made for
felling 553 loads of timber in the Forest, and 177 loads in the High Meadow
Woods, for the use of the navy, under the Queen’s sign-manual of the
7th of May.

In the following year (1852) there were two grants of land for
educational and ecclesiastical purposes; one piece was for the site of a
school at the Hawthorns, and the other for a parsonage attached to the new
church at Lydbrook, which was consecrated on the previous 4th of December
by Dr. Ollivant, Lord Bishop of Llandaff, acting for Dr. Monk, who was
unable to attend.

During the months of April and June of this year the Right Hon. T. F.
Kennedy, who, in October, 1851, had been appointed Chief Commissioner,
visited the Forest of Dean, and was much struck with its fine character and
great capabilities.  Impressed with the conviction that it might be
brought to yield a larger return to the Crown, he sought the advice of Mr.
Brown, well known in Scotland as a surveyor of woods, who inspected the
several plantations, and suggested that every encouragement should be given
to the extension of railways through the Forest, and also recommended the
erection of circular sawing power, for the purpose of reducing the timber
to a portable size and shape for naval purposes, by which its value would
be much increased, and the expense of carriage reduced.  He likewise
advised that the plan hitherto pursued of stripping the bark from the young
oaks, standing, should be discontinued, and that the bark should be removed
after the trees were felled, as being more convenient, and favourable to
the durability of the wood, and likewise p. 138as affording the
earliest opportunity to the adjoining trees to shoot out into the vacant
spaces.  He also thought that the bark was better cured on stages
raising it above the ground, than merely by setting it upon an end; and he
suggested more frequent and moderate thinnings of the plantations, which
for the sake of uniformity should be marked by the same person, thinning
more on the productive soils than elsewhere.  Mr. Brown considered,
moreover, that fewer woodmen and keepers might suffice.

Accordingly the bark was this autumn dried on stages, and the number of
keepers was reduced to three.  The whole of the timber in
Russell’s Enclosure was felled, and the trees at Howler’s
Slade, Church Hill, Park End, and on the side of the road to Blakeney were
marked for being so, with the exception of any very large or picturesque
ones.  At this time also the Lydbrook Deep Level Colliery, and the
East Dean Deep Colliery, were awarded; and at the close of the year Mr.
Machen resigned his office of Deputy-Gaveller, which was next held by Mr.
Warington Smith.

In the spring of 1853 all the timber on Church Hill, at Howler’s
Slade, and between the Blakeney Roads was cut down, forming what is now
usually called “the great fall.”  The mode of management
in the Forest was now rapidly changing, and Mr. Machen, the
Deputy-Surveyor, decided this year to resign, after a service of well nigh
half a century.  He was succeeded by Mr. Brown.  The flittern
bark of this season was dried on stages, having been taken off the young
oaks after they had been felled; but the process was not found to
answer.

The Hagloe estate, situated between the Forest and the river Severn, was
this year purchased by Government on account of its securing the best site
for railway communication with the South Wales line, as well as for
shipping timber, the river in that part being particularly favourable for
the purpose.  The formation of three distinct tramways was now also
licensed, one from near Milkwall down to the Severn and Wye line, p. 139another from
Speculation Colliery to the same point, and a third from the Ruerdean
Woodside Colliery to East Slade.

In the next year (1854) a select Committee of the House of Commons sat
during the month of June, under the presidency of Mr. Henry Drummond, to
collect information respecting “the management and condition of the
Crown Forests.”  So far as related to the Forest of Dean, the
inquiry seems to have arisen from its being supposed that the timber
therein, of which 7,800 loads had been felled during the two previous
years, might have been sold at higher prices, and that the mode of
stripping and drying the bark was defective.  Yet it appeared in
evidence that the price of the timber was about the same as such timber
usually fetched in the neighbourhood, and that, upon the whole, the method
of removing the bark from the trees whilst standing, and then setting it
upright to dry, was as good as that of first felling the tree, and then
stripping it and drying the bark on stages.  Moreover, the portable
steam saw, which had been sent to the Forest with the design of cutting the
timber, as recommended by Mr. Brown, was found to be too small for the
purpose, although it was as large as could be conveniently moved from place
to place, and hence it proved of little or no use.

The Lords of the Treasury, desirous to satisfy the public and the
legislature as to the state of Dean Forest in common with the other Crown
Forests, directed Messrs. J. Matthews, William Murton, and W. Menzies to
make a personal examination of them, and to report their opinion
thereon.  This they accordingly did in considerable detail.  With
regard to Dean Forest they say—“The enclosures were originally
planted with extreme care, their situations judiciously chosen, the land
well prepared, and the plants protected with nurses.” 
“Viewing these plantations as a whole,” they say, “we
feel quite justified in representing to your Lordships that not only is
their state such as to merit approval, but having reference to their
regularity, p.
140growth, and prospective ultimate development, they are not
surpassed by any Forest property in the kingdom.”

Whilst the condition of the Forest of Dean was being thus canvassed, its
management had been entrusted to Mr. Brown; but after a few months he was
removed, and at the particular request of Government he was succeeded by
Mr. Machen, until a permanent arrangement should be made, which was not,
however, before the 11th of November, when the office was conferred on Sir
James Campbell, Bart., heretofore Deputy-Surveyor of Bere and Parkhurst
Forests, and now selected for the ability he had shown in their
management.  The Treasury Letter announcing his appointment also
states that “after the satisfactory opinion conveyed in the Report of
Messrs. Matthews, Menzies, and Murton regarding the system of management
heretofore followed in this Forest, the time has come when Mr. Machen may
be honourably relieved from the charge which he so long ably fulfilled, and
which he resumed at the request of this Board.”

During this year (1854) no less than 4,982 acres 1 rood 20 poles of
plantation were thrown open, comprising the enclosures of Haywood, Edge
Hills, Ruerdean Hill, and Aston Bridge.  The following licences were
likewise granted:—To the Messrs. Kingsford for constructing a length
of tramway connecting the Woodside Colliery with a terminus to be formed at
Church-way; to Messrs. Allaway for making a tramroad from the Plumphill to
their iron-mine at Wigpool; to Messrs. Davis, Cooper, and Roberts to open a
brickyard, and to sink additional iron-pits at Cinderford, Clearwell, and
Lamb’s Quay.

In 1855 information was sought to be procured as to the expediency of
removing the dead wood from growing oak-trees.  The practice hitherto
had been not to do so, a course of which a large number of timber
merchants, whose known experience justified their being consulted,
expressed their unanimous approval, declaring it far better to leave its
removal to nature.  Another interesting investigation was now also
instituted, p.
141relative to the suitableness of the Deodara pine as a Forest
tree.  Upwards of 120,000 plants had been raised from seed, supplied
by the East India Company, in four private nurseries, half of which were
distributed in Dean Forest and the New and Delamere Forests; but it is yet
too early to afford any definite results.  The young plants, however,
appear to be particularly susceptible to frost.

On the 31st of March in this year the Hon. James Kenneth Howard was
appointed one of the Chief Commissioners to administer the affairs of the
Royal Forests, the Hon. Charles Gore having for some time, after Mr.
Kennedy’s retirement, been the sole Commissioner.

Three additional coal-mines, called Richard White’s Colliery,
Hollow Meadow ditto, and Ruardean ditto, besides an iron-mine, called
Maxwell and Brooklyn Mine, were now granted, besides six stone-quarries and
another brickyard.  Licence was also granted to Messrs. Crawshay to
connect their extensive colliery at Light Moore with the main line of
railway near Cinderford, on the broad gauge principle, besides four other
licences to connect various other works with the chief lines of traffic by
short lengths of tramway.

It may be here remarked, that two years previously an inspector was
appointed to view the timber intended to be felled for the navy before its
being cut, and the following table exhibits the proportion of timber
received at the Dockyard before and since the adoption of such a plan,
showing its great utility:—

On Tuesday, the 22nd of January, 1856, an important meeting took place
at the Speech-house, Sir J. Campbell taking the chair, assisted by the Rev.
H. W. Bellairs, Her Majesty’s Inspector of Schools, with the object
of attempting to raise the standard of teaching in the p. 142schools of the
district, eighteen in number, the Crown contributing to the support of each
of them.  The meeting was largely attended, especially by the
neighbouring clergy, and resulted in a period of five years being allowed
to the managers of such schools to secure the services of certificated or
registered teachers, and to adopt a scale of payments by the children,
graduated according to the rental or rateable value of the tenements
occupied by their parents.  The formation of a central school, adapted
for educating youths for filling responsible situations in the iron and
coal works of the Forest, was likewise recommended, and is obviously
desirable.  Changes were also now made, with a view to economy, in the
staff of woodmen and labourers on the Forest, whereby an annual saving,
both immediate and prospective, would be obtained.

With the exception of a few decayed timber trees being felled in the
course of the following year (1857), there is nothing requiring further
notice, and I therefore here close the historical account of the Forest,
and shall proceed in the following chapters with the other objects of
inquiry which have been indicated.

p.
143CHAPTER IX.
THE ORIGINAL OCCUPIERS OF THE FOREST.

The inhabitants of the Forest—Its
Aborigines—Celtic indications in the names of persons and
places—The forty-eight free miners’ names appended to their
book of “Dennis,” contrasted with the present roll of free
miners—Traces of Saxon and Norman influence—Early civilization
indicated in the methodical character of their mine laws, and in miners
being summoned to several sieges, qualified by their acts of
plunder—Successive notices of the inhabitants during the last 150
years, with their present improved condition—Kitty Drew, the Forest
poetess—Mining usages described—Order for pit
timber—Miners’ Court and Jury—Richard Morse’s
poem—Intelligence of the present race—Their superstitions,
self-importance, defects of character—Occupations—Domestic
animals—Beverage—Dress—Dwellings—Diversions—Dialect—Christian
names—Former distribution of population—Present numbers.

The heading of this chapter refers to one of the most interesting
circumstances connected with the Forest of Dean, namely, the origin,
character, customs, and early condition of its people.

The original occupiers of this part of the kingdom, according to Richard
of Cirencester, a writer of the 14th century, were the Silures, an offshoot
of the immense Celtic family by which the middle and western parts of
Europe were overspread.  The numerous remains left in the district by
the Romans indicate that there had been considerable intercourse between
them and the inhabitants; but the chief influences of which any traces are
left appear to have descended from the Welsh, with whom the foresters of
the present day still seem closely to assimilate.  Hence their
somewhat impulsive temperament, and the occurrence of Celtic or Silurian
names, such as the following, indicative of the character of the places
they designate:—

p.
144Dean  i.e. Woodland.
Lidney  „  Broadwater.
Awre  „  yellowish.
Bicknor  „  above the river.
Lydbrook  „  a river’s shore.
Penyard  „  the hill-top, &c.

There are also many families bearing the Welsh names of Williams,
Morgan, Pritchard, Watkins, Roberts, Gwilliam, Hughes, Jenkins, Griffiths,
Lewellyn, &c.  The list of the forty-eight free miners
constituting the jury who signed the Book of Mine Laws some 400 years ago,
containing so few of those which are now most common in the neighbourhood,
indicates a considerable change as having taken place in the population;
they may be thus classed:

Not now to be found on the roll of free miners—Garone,
Clarke, Wytt, Nortone, Mitchell, Lumbart, Ocle, Barton, Heynes, Arminger,
Rogers, Hathen, Miller, Croudfell, Dull, Loofe, Forthey, Walker, Tinker,
Witch, Delewger, Doles, Hinde, Tellow, Backstar, Lawrence, Dolet, Caloe,
Holt; in place of which names the following now occur—Baldwin, Cook,
Dobbs, Hale, Jenkins, Kear, Morgan, Philipps, Harper, Davis, Meek, Brain,
Jones, Jordan, Robins, Rudge, James, Milnes, Marfell, Chivers,
&c.  The names of Hathway, Skin, Baker, Holder, and Warr still
appear in the Forest, although they no longer occur on the rolls of free
miners.

Yet to be found on the rolls—Preeste, Smith, Addis, Burt,
Hopkine, Tyler, Roberts, Parsons.

Similar traces of Saxon or Norman influence appear in the words
Staunton, Newnham, Newland, Ayleford, Coleford, &c.; those of a Norman
stamp being apparent in St. Briavel’s, Ruerdean (i.e.
rivière Dean), Lea, Coverham (Covert), &c., or in the family
names of Baldwin, Waldwin, Chivers, &c.  To which may be added the
circumstance that in most of the ancient churches adjoining the Forest
there are portions of Early Norman, viz., Newnham, Staunton, English
Bicknor, Ruerdean, Woolaston, St. Briavel’s, &c.

Assuming that “the customs and franchises” of the p. 145miners of
the Forest were first granted to the inhabitants by William I., they
certainly show, for that early period, a highly creditable appreciation of
justice, order, and right feeling.  Their skill in the use of the bow,
and in excavating the soil, is proved by the attendance demanded of them at
various sieges during the first half of the 14th century; but their
outrageous interruption of vessels navigating the Severn in the reign of
Henry VI., and in one instance even so late as in that of George III.,
illustrates the common truth that “every field has its
tares.”  Probably the troubles of the Great Rebellion would have
little affected them, had they been left to themselves, their warmth of
feeling being chiefly manifested when they apprehended danger to their
“customs and franchises:”—hence Dr. Parsons’s
character of them:—“The inhabitants are some of them a sort of
robustic wild people, that must be civilized by good discipline and
government.”  Such was no doubt their state and condition 150
years ago.  In 1808 they were described as “not very
orderly;” in 1810 as being in a condition “nearly as wretched
as anything now existing in Ireland,” and as “exceedingly
excitable,” prone to make unlimited demands in opening and carrying
on their works, destroying the timber for such purposes, so as ultimately
to leave hardly a tithe for the supply of the Royal dockyards, perpetually
at strife amongst themselves, so jealous of any “foreigners”
coming into the Forest as to deter most persons, and highly suspicious of
any efforts to improve the property of the Crown, even when intended for
their personal good, repeatedly destroying the new plantations, and
terrifying the adjoining districts by forming riotous mobs.  Yet the
Chartists from Newport and places adjacent, in 1840, met with no sympathy
from the Foresters, who drove their delegates away.

Happily for all parties these evils have almost entirely disappeared,
through the good success which Providence has vouchsafed to the late
judicious laws for regulating the mines, settling the relief of the poor,
and establishing churches and schools in every part of the p.
146Forest.  The former state of things was in fact the effect
of the exclusive and protective rights, with corresponding usages, of which
the well-meaning but short-sighted inhabitants thought so much; and hence
their Magna Charta, as they were wont to call their book of
“Dennis,” was rather a mischief than a benefit.  Their
general feelings are characteristically described in the following lines
from the pen of worthy Kitty Drew, the self-taught Forest poetess, in her
poem on the Forest of Dean, dated 1835:—

“In days of old ’twas here and there a cot,
Of architecture they’d little knowledge got;
None but a few free miners then lived here,
Who thought no harm to catch a good fat deer,
Or steal an oak—it was their chief delight.
Old foresters, I’m told, did think ’twas right
To steal an oak, and bear it clean away;
But caught, the jail a twelvemonth and a day
It was their doom, or else must pay a fine,
The which to do they did not much incline.

* * * * *

“But noble miners there have been, I ken,
By their old works, stout, able-bodied men;
They’d not the knowledge then that now they’ve got,
To work by steam—hand-labour was their lot.
But I am told that many ages back
A foreign army did our land invade,
And blood and carnage then was all the trade;
They pitched their tents, and then without delay
They waited anxious for the bloody fray;
But our bold miners underneath did get,
And many a ton of powder there did set;
So up they blew the unsuspecting foe,
Their shattered limbs came rattling down below.
Our land thus cleared, our liberty thus saved,
Our noble miners dug the caitiffs’ grave.
The King with honour did them so regard,
Made them free miners as a just reward;
The Forest Charter to them granted was,
And firm and sure were made the Forest laws.
In former times they gloried in the name,
But now the foreigners have got the game.

* * * * *

“The Forest now is numerous got of late,
Since moneyed men come here to speculate
p.
147Where once a little turfen hut did stand,
You’ll see a noble house and piece of land.
Deeper the pits than any here before,
The lowest vein of coal for to explore.
They were but shallow pits in days of old,
They’d not the knowledge then, as I am told;
But though there was not then great learning’s store,
It was much better for the labouring poor;
Men loved their masters—masters loved their men,
But those good times we ne’er shall see again.”

A mining population is generally found to have peculiar customs and
privileges of its own, and such is more especially the case with the free
miners of the Forest of Dean, who have had hitherto their own Court of
Justice, with the exclusive occupation of the district, and the sole
control of its mineral wealth.  Their claims are thus specified by the
Dean Forest Commissioners:—“Every free miner duly qualified by
birth from a free father in the hundred of St. Briavel’s and abiding
therein, having worked in the mines a year and a day, claims the right to
demand of the King’s gaveller a ‘gale,’ that is a spot of
ground chosen by himself for sinking a mine, and this, provided it does not
interfere with the works of any other mine, the gaveller considers himself
obliged to give, receiving a fee of five shillings, and inserting the name
of the free miner in the gale-book.  The gaveller goes to the spot
selected with the free miner making the application, and gives him
possession with the following ceremonies:—The gaveller cuts a stick,
and, asking the party how many verns or partners he has, cuts a notch for
every partner, and one for the King.  A turf is then cut, and the
stick forked down by two other sticks, the turf put over it, and the party
galing the work is then considered to be put in full possession.  The
free miner, having thus obtained possession, is compelled to proceed with
the work by working one day in the following year and day, and a day in
each subsequent year and day (forfeiting the gale if he fails so to work),
and to pay an annual sum of two guineas to the gaveller for each vein of
coal he intends to work, till he gets at p. 148the coal, after which
he agrees with him for the amount of the composition to be paid to the King
in lieu of his fifth, which, in case of their not agreeing, must be taken
in kind by the King’s putting in a fifth man.  The right to the
gale is considered by the free miner to carry with it that of timber for
the use of the works; this seems to extend no farther than to the offal and
soft wood; and the mode of obtaining it is for the miner to apply to the
keeper of the walk in which his mine is situated for an order, which he
takes to the clerk of the Swainmote Court, who, on receiving a fee of one
shilling, as a matter of course gives him another order directed to the
keeper of the walk in which there is timber fit for the purpose,” in
the following form:—

Copy of a Warrant or Order for the Delivery of Timber to a Coal Miner
in Dean Forest.

“[Forest of Dean.]  At the Court of Attachments, holden at
the Speech House, the 25th day of Sep. 1784, came Phil. Hatton, and
demanded Timber for himself and Verns, for the Use of their Coal Works
called Young Colliers, in Ruerdean Walk, within the said Forest.

“Jno. Matthews, Steward.

“To Mr. John Bradley, Keeper of the said Walk.
                   
                   
  (by Certificate.)

“Some Timber to be delivered fit for sinking.
            Indorsed ‘4
Oaks.’

“The miner cuts the timber when assigned, and until within about
the last ten years paid a fee of two shillings to the keeper, there being
no limit to the amount of timber if applied for the use of the works. 
If the gale-ground was situated within the hundred of St. Briavel’s,
but belonged to private parties, the free miner still claimed his right to
open the ground, the proprietor being let in as a partner, making a sixth,
the only exception being churchyards, gardens, orchards, and Crown
plantations.”

A jury of twelve, twenty-four, forty-eight, or seventy free miners,
under the auspices of the Constable of St. Briavel’s Castle, or his
deputy, enacted such mine laws p. 149as the interests of the body seemed to
require, administering them without any appeal, or permission to resort to
another court of law.  The witnesses in giving evidence wore their
caps to show that they were free miners, and took the usual oath, touching
the Book of the Four Gospels with a stick of holly, [149a]
so as not to soil the Sacred Volume with their miry hands.  These
singular usages explain the observation of the Rev. H. Berkin that
“the inhabitants are completely sui generis,” and
“their exact situation can scarcely be understood except by those on
the spot,” as likewise the sentiment which the Rev. H. C. H. Hawkins
expresses—“by altering the character of the Foresters, a
curious relic of antiquity might be destroyed, to my regret I must own, as
I feel desirous to preserve so singular a specimen in all its
purity.”

In the year 1832 the Rev. C. Crawley stated, “I think the moral
character of the inhabitants has been much improved by the building of
churches; heinous offences are very rare in the Forest:” and in 1849
Mr. Machen said, “A great change has been wrought in them; there is a
very great difference in their habits now, certainly.” [149b]

p.
150The Forest miners of the present day are well acquainted with the
geological structure of their neighbourhood, more especially with the
out-crop, succession, and dip of the mineral veins.  In short, their
natural endowments are fully equal to the general standard, and only
require cultivation, as frequently appears from the quickness with which
they detect the bearings of any pecuniary transaction, and their proneness
to litigation.  Many superstitions, however, still linger amongst
them, such as the use of charms and incantations, a belief in witchcraft
and an evil eye, a resort to “wise men,” and even to the
minister of the parish as being a “Master of Arts,” or for some
of the offertory money, out of which to have a charm-ring made.  They
are likewise inclined to give credence to tales of apparitions, and to
regard sickness and accident as fated and inevitable.  From their
having been for so many generations an isolated and peculiar people, most
of them are ignorant of the rest of the world, and have of course a
correspondingly exaggerated idea of their own importance.  It is
pleasing to observe the sympathy they manifest towards the sick amongst
them, or such as have been accidentally injured; and although most
independent in their notions, and impatient of p. 151control, they seem
always thankful for real kindness.  What they chiefly lack is more
generosity and candour towards strangers, and a clearer understanding of
their duties as protectors of the national property, in respect of the
crops of timber which grow around them. [151]  In most mining
districts the moral habits of the people are more or less in a low state,
and they are certainly not worse here than elsewhere.  One source of
evil arises from the large ablutions which their working underground
necessitates.  The process of washing on their return from the pit is
not performed as privately as it might be, and the effect of this upon the
moral perceptions of the people, huddled together in their small cottages,
is very injurious.  It is a pity some arrangement is not made for
having washhouses at the pits, where a supply of hot water from the boilers
might be easily obtained for the purpose.

One half of the Forest population is understood to be employed at the
coal-works, a fourth part at those of iron, whose red dresses make them
easily known, and the remaining portion are employed in the quarries and
woods, &c.

Horses of a bad breed, donkeys, mules, cattle, sheep, pigs, and geese
abound, owing to the free pasture afforded by the open Forest, the three
former having been used for many generations in carrying iron-mine, coal,
charcoal, &c.  Farming operations are necessarily very
limited.  Cider obtained from the styre apple used to be a common
beverage; but that fruit has long been extinct, and malt-liquor is now
mostly preferred.  Gardening is little attended to, the colliers
generally feeling indisposed to further exertion after returning from the
pit.  In few instances only are bees kept.  Formerly much of the
wearing apparel was made from home-spun wool, woven or knitted in the
neighbourhood; but this is not now the practice.

The turf-covered cabin, resting on four dry walls, without windows, and
pierced only by a low door, with p. 152a very rude fireplace
and chimney in “the pine end,” and partially paved with rough
stones, once the habitation of the Forest “cabiner,” is now
almost entirely superseded by two-floored cottages, often containing not
less than four apartments.  In bygone days a few neighbours, taking
advantage of a moonlight night, accomplished the erection of a cabin ere
the morning dawned, in which case it was supposed that the keepers had no
power to pull it down.  To show the eagerness with which poor families
sought to establish themselves in the Forest, it may be mentioned that they
took possession of the ancient mine-caves, walling up the back and front,
leaving a vent for the smoke in the former, and in the latter a gap as an
entrance.

Their pastimes used to be dancing and foot-ball, to the great delight of
people of all ages: indeed there are several spots yet called from the
above circumstance “the dancing green.”  Wakes were
likewise very popular, and also the game of fives, so that at Ruerdean one
side of the church tower was whitewashed for the purpose, and resorted to
even on Sundays.  Some of the provincialisms of the district occur in
the following words—“yat” (gate), “tump”
(hillock), “teart” (sharp), “spract” (lively),
“twich” (touch), “near a anoust” (near the same),
“anunt” (opposite).

Peculiarities also occur in the selection of Christian names, including
these—Benedicta, Abia, Winifred, Kezia, Barzillai, Sibylla, Eve,
Saba, Sabina, Beata, Tryphena, Belinda, Myra, Terzah, Nimrod, River,
Milson, Miles, &c. [152]

On account of the dense woods with which the Forest was anciently
covered, added to the fact that except at Newland, and perhaps at Park End,
no churches were p. 153built within it, we may conclude that at an
early period its population was small, the persons engaged in the iron and
coal works then living, as many of the working people do now, in the
adjoining parishes.  Our earliest information as to the number of
inhabitants residing within its present limits relates to the time of the
Commonwealth, when “400 cabins of beggarly people living upon the
waste, and destroying the wood and timber, were thrown down.” 
In 1712 Sir R. Atkins states that “there had been many cottages in
it, but that they had been lately pulled down, leaving only the six
keepers’ houses.”  He gives 6,090 as the total population
of the outlying parishes, thus distributed:—

At the close of the century, the Forest, as now bounded, comprised 589
houses, which in 1803 had increased to 696, the number of free miners being
then 662.  Since that time the inhabitants of the Forest have gone on
increasing as follows:—

In 1821 they were  5,525
In 1831  „  7,014
In 1841  „  10,674
In 1851  „  13,252

of whom about 1,789 have the right of voting for Members of
Parliament.  The annual value of property existing in the Forest, not
belonging to the Crown, was estimated in 1849 at £13,603 14s. 2d.,
and in 1856 at £18,492 17s. 7d.

p.
154CHAPTER X.

Churches and schools—Religious provisions before the
Reformation—Rev. P. M. Procter, Vicar of Newland, lectures in Thomas
Morgan’s cottage—The erection of a place for worship
proposed—Rev. H. Berkin opens a Sunday-school—Mr. Procter uses
his chapel schoolroom—Mr. Berkin lectures in the Foresters’
cottages—Builds Holy Trinity Church (1817)—His assiduous
labours and death in 1847—Christ Church, Berry Hill—Mr.
Procter’s death—His successors—Rev. H. Poole builds St.
Paul’s, Park End, and schoolrooms—Rev. J. J. Ebsworth—St.
John’s, Cinderford, consecrated 1844—Lydbrook Church
consecrated 1851—Government aid to the churches and schools.

Previous to the Reformation, care seems to have been taken to provide
the population of the Forest with the means of religious worship.  The
border churches of Mitcheldean and Newland were far larger than the people
residing in their immediate neighbourhood required; and there were others,
of which the memorials only remain in the names of “Chapel
Hill” and “Church Hill,” the former in the parish of
English Bicknor, and the latter at Park End.  This last was connected
apparently with Ruerdean, if we may judge from the “Churchway”
which ran in that direction and gave the name to an adjacent
colliery.  The “Laws and Customes” of the free miners,
dating as far back certainly as the year 1300, show that the services of
the Church were then generally known—the King’s Gaveller being
therein directed to visit the mine “between Mattens and Masse,”
and the miner was to “swear by his faith.”  For 200 years
after the Reformation no further provision was made, indeed none was
apparently required, as the Forest had been more than once nearly
depopulated during that period, and was said to be almost without
inhabitants in 1712.

In common with many other mineral districts, especially those in the
West, the Rev. John Wesley established a connection with our Forest
miners.  He visited Coleford as early as 1756, and did so again in
1763; and his Journal thus records these visits:—p. 155“Monday, 15th
March, 1756.—We reached Coleford before seven, and found a plain
loving people, who received the word of God with all gladness. 
Tuesday, 16th.—Examining the little society, I found them grievously
harassed by disputations.  Anabaptists were on one side, and Quakers
on the other; and hereby five or six persons have been confused.  But
the rest cleave so much the closer together.  Nor does it appear that
there is now one trifler, much less a disorderly walker, among
them.”  Wednesday, 17th (August, 1763).—“Hence we
rode to Coleford.  The wind being high, I consented to preach in their
new room; but large as it was, it would not contain the people, who
appeared to be not a little affected, of which they gave a sufficient proof
by filling the room at five in the morning.”

It appears, also, as stated in the interesting MS. of worthy Mr.
Horlich, an Independent Minister, that in the year 1783 “one Mr.
Stiff occasionally, on the Lord’s Day, went to some sequestered spot
in the Forest, where himself and some of his family took their station
under the extended branches of one of the trees, for the purpose of reading
the Word of God.”

But no sustained effort to impart religious instruction to the
inhabitants of the Forest was made until 1803, when the Rev. P. M. Procter
became Vicar of Newland, to which parish the Foresters were always
considered to belong.  “At this time,” he says, in his
‘Brief and Authentic Statement,’ published in 1819, “I
saw nothing of them on the Sabbath-day.  The church was only used by
them as a matter of course and necessity: indeed, a general opinion
prevailed that they had no right to accommodation, and a Forester was
seldom seen in the aisle.  The first impression I received respecting
the inhabitants was of the most unfavourable kind.  For some months no
other intercourse took place than what the visiting of the sick and the
baptizing of the children occasioned.  By these means, however, I came
to the knowledge of their condition, their lives and conversation, of which
the latter were the most deplorable—habitual profanation p. 156of the
Sabbath-day, drunkenness, rioting, immodest dancing, revellings, fightings,
an improper state of females on their marriage, and an absence and
ignorance of the Holy Scriptures.”

Mr. Procter then goes on to relate how he was brought to attempt their
improvement.—“After a few months’ residence I was invited
to take the afternoon duty of the chapel at Coleford.  Curiosity
brought some of the colliers to hear, and the report they carried home with
them induced others to come and judge for themselves.  We passed on
very quietly for a little time, when a collier, named Thomas Morgan, sent
to request that I would call upon him.  I did so.  After the
accustomed salutations were passed, he assigned certain impressive reasons
for wishing to see me, and, in stating them, his eyes, his voice, and
humble gesture strongly marked the agitated feelings of his soul. 
After an interesting conversation of two hours, I promised, at his request,
to call upon him again the following week.  On taking my leave he
said, ‘I hope your honour will not be offended, but some of my
relations and neighbours are in the same ignorant state as myself; they
would be happy to hear your conversation, and with permission I will ask
one or two to come.’  Under the impression of a private
conversation with six or eight people, I went to the cottage at the time
appointed.  Upon laying my hand on the latch of the door, the opening
of it was prevented—the resistance proceeded from the number of
people collected within.  A profound silence prevailed.  The
collier smiled and looked for a pardon.  Astonished at this unexpected
scene, not being accustomed and perfectly unprepared to address such an
assemblage, I felt for some moments at a loss how to proceed.  But
there was no time for hesitation; taking the Bible, the 61st of Isaiah was
the chapter read and commented upon.  The attention with which the
poor heard, the very humble manner in which they returned thanks, and the
earnest hope they expressed that I would come again, made a deep impression
in their favour.  Under these circumstances I was led, p. 157as it were,
unintentionally to the commencement of those lectures which continue to the
present time (1819).  The first effects of these lectures were seen in
the observance of the sacred duties of the Sabbath-day; our congregations
at Newland increased, and the aisles of the church became occupied, in
which the Foresters were now seen.  Year after year passed away, the
Thursday evening lectures continued to be well attended, the moral habits
of the people improved, and a knowledge of the Scriptures obtained. 
Religion had evidently taken root; much was effected, but infinitely more
remained to be done.  The means only were wanting—the
opportunity was present.  Could we raise a building to contain
about 200 people?  Such were our limited views at that
time.”

In 1807 a memorial was drawn up and signed by some hundreds of miners
and colliers, praying the officers of the Crown to grant a portion of land
on which to erect a lecture-room, and also timber for building it. 
Dr. Huntingford, the Bishop of Gloucester, presented the petition to
Government; but the law officers of the Crown, Sir S. Romilly and Sir A.
Piggott, found that it could not be carried into effect without an Act of
the Legislature.  Under Mr. Perceval’s administration, Mr.
Procter renewed the attempt by a personal interview with that minister,
who, whilst expressing his deep regret that he could not officially assist,
suggested an appeal to the public, to which he would give his name and
support, as well as an application to the National Society about to be
formed.  To him, in fact, is due the insertion at this juncture of the
clause in the Act of 52nd George III., chap. 161, sec. 27, to enable the
Commissioners of the Treasury to appropriate small portions of land, not
exceeding five acres, for ecclesiastical purposes, and which has
facilitated the erection of the Forest churches.

Closely resembling the above efforts were those made on the north-east
side of the Forest by the Rev. H. Berkin, which he commenced about the year
1809, when curate of Mitcheldean.  He writes—“Finding the
miners and colliers of the Forest, adjoining that p. 158parish, too generally
living in the neglect of moral and religious duties, I considered it a duty
to attempt their improvement.”  In January, 1812, he opened a
school-room in Mitcheldean, which he had built mainly at his own expense,
although he was afterwards assisted by his private friends, and in
particular by a liberal donation from the Duke of Beaufort, and eventually
by a grant of £50 from the National Society, £100 being given
at the same time to Mr. Procter’s building-fund—these were the
very first donations to country schools made by that estimable
institution.  Mr. Berkin’s school was at once attended by 140
scholars, and ultimately 350 came.  In the first Report of the
National Society it is stated that “many of the parents expressed
their acknowledgments to Mr. Berkin with the tears in their eyes, exerting
themselves to the utmost to enable their children to be constant in their
attendance, in spite of the numerous difficulties with which they had to
struggle—such as the distance of the schools, the wretched state of
the roads in bad weather, and the extreme poverty of the people, which
makes it a hard matter for them to clothe their children properly, and to
furnish them with a slice of bread for their dinner.”

Returning to Mr. Procter’s exertions to erect a building for the
two-fold purpose of divine service and juvenile instruction, he found
consolation for former disappointments in the following pleasing offer of
Thomas Morgan, the poor cottager already mentioned:—“Take my
field,” said he.  “With that I give you five guineas, to
which my neighbours have added £15.  We ask of you only to begin
and build until the money is expended; in another year we will again add
our mites; only lay the foundation and begin.”  Accordingly, in
the month of June, 1812, the building was commenced, and (aided by the
subscriptions which were received, especially from the Duke of Beaufort,
the Lord Bishop of Gloucester, and his secretary, Mr. Ryder) was so
constructed as to admit of its being hereafter enlarged and
consecrated.  “On the Epiphany, 6th January, 1813, the public
service of the Established p. 159Church was, for the first time, read within
its walls, under the authority of an episcopal licence; but on the
commencement of Sunday duty a painful circumstance presented itself which
had not been anticipated, viz. an astonishing inattention to the prayers of
the Church: all appeared a blank—no interest, no spiritual
concern.  The cause was evident in the want of prayer-books, soon
however supplied by the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, and one
of the bishops of the Church.  A schoolmaster, Mr. Edward Hawkins,
previously sent to the National School in Baldwin’s Gardens,
immediately commenced the education of the children—300 being entered
the first week.  On every Thursday evening throughout the year the
scholars were examined in the presence of a congregation assembled for
public worship—a mode of instruction which gave a laudable excitement
to the children, by means of which they acquired a firmness of mind, a
clear, distinct pronunciation, and an accuracy in their delivery, which was
very gratifying to the hearers, whilst it gave to the parents and relations
an opportunity of observing their progress by the system of
education.  Through this medium, also, many a truth has been taught,
many an impression made, where preaching had not succeeded.” 
“By this time,” proceeds the same excellent man, “the
principles and motives of my exertions being made apparent, all the little
prejudices were softened down, if not into approval, at least into a
passive silence, particularly as another clergyman, the Rev. H. Berkin, was
zealously pursuing the same line of conduct on the other side of the
Forest, who began this year (1812) to lecture in the cottages there, as his
next attempt to benefit the parents and children connected with his
school.”  He says—“Finding that few, by comparison,
attended public worship, I visited them in their cottages to read and
explain the Bible; and I was led to adopt this plan from the particular
situation of the Foresters, destitute of churches or ministers whom they
could properly call their own.  In these pastoral visits, made on
different evenings in different places, and p. 160in which I have
usually spent two hours in reading and practically explaining the Holy
Scriptures, I have sometimes had 200 persons present at one time, and
calculate on the whole that 800 at different times have thus come under
instruction.  Many instances might be produced, certainly not less
than 20 families, of reformation in both sexes, which had evinced itself in
their desire to possess the Bible and Common Prayer Book, and by a total
change in their moral character.”