TheForest of Dean (Forest of Dean English: Vorest o’ Dean)[1] is a geographical, historical andcultural region in the western part of thecounty ofGloucestershire, England. It forms a roughlytriangularplateau bounded by theRiver Wye to the west and northwest,Herefordshire to the north, theRiver Severn to the south, and theCity of Gloucester to the east.
The area is characterised by more than 110 square kilometres (42 sq mi) of mixed woodland, one of the survivingancient woodlands in England. A large area was reserved for royal hunting before 1066, and remained as the second largestcrown forest in England, after theNew Forest, 105 kilometres (65 mi) to the southeast. Although the name is used loosely to refer to the part of Gloucestershire between the Severn and Wye, the Forest of Dean proper has covered a much smaller area since theMiddle Ages. In 1327, it was defined to cover only the royaldemesne and parts of parishes within thehundred of St Briavels,[2] and after 1668 comprised the royal demesne only. The Forest proper is within the civil parishes ofWest Dean,Lydbrook,Cinderford,Ruspidge, andDrybrook, together with a strip of land in the parish ofEnglish Bicknor.[3]
Traditionally the main sources of work have beenforestry – includingcharcoal production –iron working andcoal mining. Archaeological studies have dated the earliest use of coal toRoman times for domestic heating and industrial processes such as the preparation of iron ore.[4]
The area gives its name to thelocal government district,Forest of Dean, and aparliamentary constituency, both of which cover wider areas than the historic Forest. The administrative centre of the local authority isColeford, one of the main towns in the historic Forest area, together with Cinderford andLydney.[5]
The origin of the name is unknown. The prevalence ofWelsh place names in the area suggests a possible corruption ofdin (meaning "hillfort"). However, similar or identical elements fromOld English exist throughout England.[6] In Welsh, Forest of Dean isFforest y Ddena.[citation needed]
Gerald of Wales, writing in the 12th century, refers to the area asDanubia which may translate as "land of Danes" following the Viking settlements in that era. It is possible that an original nameDene developed from this.[7]
The area was inhabited inMesolithic times,[8] and there are also remains of latermegalithic monuments, including the Longstone[9] nearStaunton and the Broadstone[10] at Wibdon,Stroat.Barrows have been identified atTidenham andBlakeney.Bronze Agefield systems have been identified at Welshbury Hill nearLittledean, and there areIron Agehill forts atSymonds Yat and Welshbury. There is archaeological evidence of early trading by sea, probably throughLydney. BeforeRoman times, the area may have been occupied by theBritishDobunni tribe, although few of their coins have been found in the area and control may have been contested with the neighbouringSilures.[11]
The area was occupied by the Romans in around AD 50. They were attracted by its natural resources which includediron ore,ochre andcharcoal. Thecoal mining industry was probably established on a small scale in Roman times.[12] The area was governed from the Roman town ofAriconium atWeston under Penyard nearRoss-on-Wye, and a road was built from there to a river crossing atNewnham on Severn and port at Lydney. The "Dean Road", still visible atSoudley, is believed to be a medieval rebuilding of theRoman road, and would have been an important route to transportiron ore and finished metal products. During Roman times there wereRoman villas at Blakeney,Woolaston and elsewhere, and towards the end of the Roman period, around AD 370, a majorRoman temple complex dedicated to the godNodens was completed at Lydney. The central parts of the woodlands in the forest are believed to have been protected for hunting since Roman times.[13]
The area formed part of theCantref Coch and was traditionally considered part of theBrythonic kingdom ofErgyng, centered in modern Herefordshire. Even when the area came under Anglo-Saxon control, the Forest of Dean remained under the auspices of thediocese ofHereford, rather than Gloucester. TheBeachley andLancaut peninsulas east of the Lower Wye remained in Welsh control at least until the 8th century.[11]
Around 790 theSaxon KingOffa of Mercia built hisdyke high above the Wye, but the area was still claimed by theKingdom of Gwent andMorgannwg before it was annexed into thekingdom of England byÆthelstan in 926.[14]
Throughout the next few centuriesVikings conducted raids up the Severn, but by the 11th century, the kingdom ofWessex had established civil government.[3] The core of the forest was used by the late Anglo-Saxon kings, and after 1066 theNormans, as their personal hunting ground. The area was kept stocked withdeer andwild boar and became important fortimber,charcoal,iron ore andlimestone.
TheHundred of St Briavels was established in the 12th century, at the same time as many Norman laws concerning the Forest of Dean were put in place.St Briavels Castle became the Forest's administrative and judicial centre.Verderers were appointed to act for the king and protect his royal rights, and local people were given somecommon rights.Flaxley Abbey was built and given rights and privileges. In 1296, miners from the Hundred of St Briavels supported KingEdward I at thesiege ofBerwick-on-Tweed in theScottish Wars of Independence by undermining the then Scottish town's defences in the first step of his campaign to seize Scotland fromJohn Balliol. As a result, the king granted free mining rights within the forest to the miners and their descendants; the rights continue to the present day. Miners at that time were mainly involved in iron ore mining – although the presence of coal was well known, and limited amounts had been recovered in Roman times. Coal was not used forironmaking with the methods ofsmelting then in use. Later thefreeminer rights were used mainly for coal mining.[3] The activities of the miners were regulated by the Court of Mine Law.[12] This, and other forms of self-governance, coupled with the Forest's geographic isolation between the rivers Severn and Wye, has given rise to a strong sense of cultural identity in those from the area, who are collectively known as "Foresters".[15] The ancient rights were put on the statute books in theDean Forest (Mines) Act 1838, the only public act to affect private individuals.[16] Residents of the hundred over 18 can graze sheep in the Forest in accordance with an agreement between Forestry England and the Commoners Association.
In October 2010 a woman won the right to be classified as a Freeminer. Elaine Morman, an employee atClearwell Caves in the Forest, who had worked as a miner ofochre for a number of years, raised a claim ofsexual discrimination against theForestry Commission. AfterMark Harper MP raised the matter in theHouse of Commons, theForestry Commission reversed its position and agreed to register her.[17][18]
The forest was used exclusively as aroyal hunting ground for theTudors, and subsequently a source of food for the royal court. Its rich deposits of iron ore led to its becoming a major source of iron. The forest's timber was particularly fine, and was regarded as the best material for building ships.[19]
In the 17th century, as a result of KingCharles I's decision torule without Parliament, he sought to raise finances through grants of royal forest lands. 3,000 acres (1,200 ha) of the Forest of Dean was disafforested in the 1620s, causing aseries of riots in 1631–32; this was part of enclosure riots across the South West commonly known as the Western Rising. In 1639 22,000 acres (8,900 ha) were disafforested, with 4,000 acres (1,600 ha) going to manorial lords and freeholders in compensation. 18,000 acres (7,300 ha) were to go to the Crown, and be sold on to SirJohn Winter. Riots ensued in 1641.[20] Winter's claim to the lands was voided by Parliament in March 1642, in part because he had failed to pay. His assets were sequestrated for supporting the Crown during theCivil War. TheProtectorate tried to enclose a third of the forest in 1657, leaving two thirds to the commoners. Although a relatively generous settlement, it caused resistance in April and May 1659, when fences of new enclosures were broken and cattle brought in to graze. Royalists includingEdward Massey attempted to bring the discontented to the side ofCharles II.[21]
After the restoration Sir John Winter successfully reasserted his right to the Forest of Dean. However forest law was re-established by an act of Parliament, theDean Forest Act 1667 (19 & 20 Cha. 2. c. 8) in 1668. In 1672 the king's ironworks were closed to reduce pressure on the forest from mining.[22] TheSpeech House, betweenColeford andCinderford, was built in 1682 to host the Court of Mine Law and "Court of the Speech", a sort of parliament for theVerderers andFree Miners managing the forest, game, and mineral resources.[23] Colloquially known as the "Verderer's Court". The Gaveller and his deputy were responsible for leasing gales – areas allocated for mining – on behalf of the Crown.[12] The Speech House has been used as an inn and hotel since the 19th century.
The Forest of Dean, with its huge iron ore reserves and ready supply of timber, had been of national importance in the production of iron, using charcoal, for hundreds of years.[24] Despite the abundance of coal, it was not until the last decade of the 18th century that localironmasters were prepared to invest in the technology needed to produce iron fromcoke, when coke-fired furnaces atCinderford,Whitecliff andParkend were built almost simultaneously.[25]
During the 18th century, squatters established roughly-built hamlets around the fringes of the Crown forest demesne. By about 1800, these settlements were well established atBerry Hill andParkend.
In 1808Parliament passed theDean and New Forests Act 1808, which included the provision to enclose 11,000 acres (4,500 ha) of woodland. This enclosure was carried out between 1814 and 1816.[26]
There were bread riots in 1795 and in 1801. Ordinary Foresters were already poverty-stricken, and their plight had grown worse. They were denied access to the enclosed areas and unable to hunt or remove timber. In particular, they lost their ancient grazing and mining rights.[26]
As unrest grew, a populist leader namedWarren James emerged in the riots against the enclosures. Attempts to peaceably resolve the matter failed, and on 8 June 1831, James, leading more than 100 Foresters, demolished the enclosure at Park Hill, between Parkend andBream. Around 50 unarmed Crown Officers were powerless to intervene. On the Friday, a party of 50 soldiers arrived fromMonmouth, but by now the number of Foresters had grown to around 2,000 and the soldiers returned to barracks.[27] Over the next few days more troops arrived from around the country.[28] The Foresters' resistance crumbled and most of those arrested elected to rebuild the enclosures, rather than be charged with rioting. James was sentenced to death but his sentence was later commuted to transportation. He was sent toVan Diemen's Land (Tasmania) in October 1831, only to be pardoned five years later, although he never returned home.[29]
Conservatives were disliked in the Forest of Dean; on polling day in 1874, there was a riot in the market town of Cinderford in which the Conservative party headquarters and nearby houses were ransacked and damaged.[30]
On 26 April 1889, four Frenchmen and their twobears were making their way toRuardean, having performed in Cinderford. They were attacked by an angry mob, enraged by claims that the bears had killed a child and injured a woman. The bears were killed and the Frenchmen badly beaten.
It soon became clear that the bears had not attacked anyone. Police proceedings followed and a week later 13 colliers and labourers appeared before magistrates at Littledean, charged with ill-treating and killing the bears and assaulting the Frenchmen. All but two were found guilty on one or more charges, with another convicted a week later. A total of £85 (equivalent to £11,900 in 2023) was paid in fines. Asubscription was also launched which generously compensated the Frenchmen.
The term "Who killed the bears?" existed for many years as an insult, directed particularly towards the people of Ruardean – despite the fact that all those convicted were from Cinderford.[31]
A fictional version of the incident was used byDennis Potter for his TV playA Beast With Two Backs.
Exploitation of theForest of Dean Coalfield developed rapidly in the early 19th century with increased demand from local ironworks, and when some of the earliesttramroads in the UK were built here to transport coal to local ports the area was transformed by the growth ofmining and the production of iron and steel.
In 1818–19David Mushet builtDarkhill Ironworks, where he experimented with iron and steel making. In 1845, his youngest son,Robert Forester Mushet, took over its management. He perfected theBessemer Process by solving the quality problems which beset the process.[32] In a second key advance in metallurgy he inventedMushet steel (R.M.S.) in 1868.[33] It was the first truetool steel[33] and the firstair-hardening steel.[34] It revolutionised the design of machine tools and the progress of industrial metalworking, and was the forerunner ofHigh speed steel. The remains of Darkhill are preserved as an Industrial Archaeological Site of International Importance and are open to the public.[35]
The Park Gutter pit was renamed Princess Royal afterPrincess Victoria in 1842. The Princess Royal Colliery Company was founded in 1891 to work Park Gutter and Flour Mill Pits. It reached peak production in the 1930s, employing 1300 men. The pits closed in 1962.[36]
Cinderford was laid out as a planned town in the mid-19th century, but the characteristic form of settlement remained the sprawling hamlets of haphazardly placed cottages. Characteristics shared with other British coalfields, such as a devotion to sport, the central role of miners' clubs, and the formation ofbrass bands, created a distinct community identity.[3]
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Forest was a complex industrial region with deep coal mines, iron mines, iron andtinplate works, foundries, quarries and stone-dressing works, wood distillation works producing chemicals, a network of railways, and numerous tramroads. The tradition of independence in the area resulted in a great number of smaller and not necessarily economically successful mines. In 1904 the Gaveller oversaw a period of amalgamation of collieries which allowed deeper mines to be sunk. During the early 20th century, annual output from the coalfield rarely fell below 1 million tons.[12]
In 1945 half of the male working population worked in the coal industry but after the Second World War increased pumping costs and other factors made the coalfield less economic. The last commercial iron mine closed in 1946 followed in 1965 by the closure of the last large colliery, Northern United.[12][37] There are still small private mines in operation, worked byfreeminers andHopewell Colliery is open to the public.
With the decline of the mines, the area has undergone a period of significant change, ameliorated to some extent by a shift tohigh technology, with companies establishing themselves in the area, attracted bygrants and a willing workforce.
Many mines have now been reclaimed by the forest and the area is characterised by picturesque scenery punctuated by remnants of the industrial age and small towns. There remains a number of industrial areas but the focus has been to capitalise on the scenery and to create jobs from tourist attractions and the leisure sector. Significant numbers of residents work outside the area,commuting toGloucester,Cheltenham,Bristol,Newport andCardiff.
The Forest of Dean is formed of a raised basin ofpalaeozoic rocks folded in theVariscan Orogeny, similar to theSouth Wales coalfield to the west. Underlain by great thicknesses of theOld Red Sandstone, the basin is filled withCarboniferouslimestones,sandstones andcoal measures, all of which have contributed to the industrial history of the region. Its highest point isRuardean Hill (290 m, 950 ft).[38]
The forest is composed ofdeciduous andevergreen trees. Predominant isoak, bothpedunculate andsessile.Beech is common andsweet chestnut has grown here for many centuries. The forest is home tofoxgloves and other wild flowers. Conifers include someWeymouth pine from 1781,Norway spruce,Douglas fir andlarch. The deer are predominantlyfallow deer and have been present since the second world war (there were no deer from about 1855 when they were removed in accordance with an Act of Parliament). A number of fallow deer in the central area aremelanistic. Small numbers ofroe deer andmuntjac deer have spread in from the east.
The Forest is also home towild boar. A population in the Ross-on-Wye area on the northern edge of the forest escaped from a wild boar farm around 1999 and are believed to be of pure Eastern European origin; in a second introduction, a domestic herd was dumped nearStaunton in 2004, but are not pure bred wild boar. Attempts to locate the source of the illegal dumps were unsuccessful and boar can now be found in many parts of the Forest.
Locally there are mixed feelings about the presence of boar.[39] Problems have included ploughing up gardens and picnic areas, attacking dogs and panicking horses, road traffic accidents, and ripping open rubbish bags. The local authority undertook a public consultation and have recommended to the Verderers that control is necessary. Under its international obligations the UK government is obliged to consider the reintroduction of species made extinct through the activities of man, the wild boar included.[40]
The Forest of Dean is known for its woodland birds;pied flycatchers,redstarts,wood warblers,lesser spotted woodpecker,nightjars andhawfinches can be seen atRSPB Nagshead and other parts of the forest. The mixed forest supports one of Britain's highest concentrations ofgoshawks and a viewing site at New Fancy is staffed during February and March. However, goshawks are still illegally killed in the area, with a bird found dead with a shotgun wound in June 2022.[41]Peregrine falcons can be seen from the viewpoint atSymonds Yat rock.Mandarin ducks, which nest in the trees, andreed warblers can be seen atCannop Ponds and Cannop Brook, running from the ponds through Parkend, is famed for itsdippers.
Butterflies of note are thesmall pearl-bordered fritillary,wood white andwhite admiral.Gorsty Knoll is famed for itsglowworms and Woorgreens Lake for itsdragonflies.
The Forest of Dean is also a stronghold for Britain's only venomous snake, theEuropean adder, although its population is now believed to be in dramatic decline.
The lists below include towns, villages and places of interest which are within the historic Forest; they do not include places which are located outside that area, but which are within the largerDistrict Council area.
TheA40 runs along the northern and northeastern edges of the Forest of Dean. The road provides the Forest with a direct connection toRoss-on-Wye and theM50 inHerefordshire. Westbound, the road runs towardsMonmouth andSouth Wales. To the East, the road links the Forest directly toGloucester, theM5,Cheltenham andOxford. North of the Forest, the road is managed byNational Highways.[47]
To the southeast of the Forest, theA48 links the region toChepstow, theM4 andNewport, orGloucester. This route passes around theLydney area and follows the course of theRiver Severn.
Other key routes include:
Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) levels, measured using roadsidediffusion tubes, are generally well below the UK national target for clean air, set at 40 μg/m3 (micrograms percubic metre). In 2017, no roadside monitoring site in theForest of Dean District failed to meet the UK objective. The most polluted site measured was on Lydney High Street, with a 2017 average NO2 concentration of 36.9 μg/m3.[48]
The Forest of Dean once boasted a developed railway network, much of which evolved fromplateways built in the early 19th century to facilitate freight traffic to and from mineral workings in the Forest. Many of these lines were part of theSevern and Wye Railway,[49][50][51] which ran from theRiver Severn at Lydney to Cinderford, with branch lines to Lydbrook, where it connected with theRoss & Monmouth Railway, and Coleford, where it linked to theWye Valley Railway via a line known as theColeford Railway. TheForest of Dean Railway also ran towards Cinderford and its nearby collieries, branching from theSouth Wales Railway atBullo Pill. The less successfulForest of Dean Central Railway attempted to compete with the other lines for coal traffic but was rendered obsolete by the opening of the Mineral Loop, a new line opened by the Severn & Wye to connect a number of pitheads. Most of these railways now cease to exist, with most of the railways in the Forest abandoned by 1968.[52] A section of theDean Forest Railway betweenLydney Junction andNorchard is now aheritage railway.[50][53]
TheGloucester-Newport line continues to carry passengers.Lydney railway station serves the Forest of Dean, with 0.196 million passenger entries and exits in 2017–18. The station is served by trains operated byTransport for Wales, linking the Forest directly toCheltenham andGloucester to the north, andChepstow,Newport,Cardiff and onward destinations inSouth Wales.CrossCountry runs limited services to the station, linking the Forest toBirmingham New Street and onward destinations in theMidlands.[54][55]
In 1967,John Berger's sociological workA Fortunate Man was set in the Forest of Dean. A film of the same name was filmed in the Forest of Dean in 1972.[57][58]
Heavy metal bandBlack Sabbath rentedClearwell Castle in 1973 to write and record their fifth album,Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. The band rehearsed in the castle dungeon for inspiration.[59] In 1978, the members ofLed Zeppelin reconvened at the castle after a period apart, and began writing and rehearsing what became theirIn Through the Out Door album.[60]
J. K. Rowling, author of theHarry Potter series, sets several crucial chapters of her final Harry Potter book in this forest.[61]
In July 2014, scenes fromStar Wars: The Force Awakens were filmed inPuzzlewood.[62]
Several locations in the forest were used as a filming location for multiple scenes in the Netflix seriesSex Education (2019-2023).[63]
The 2023Channel Four seriesThe Change was set in the forest.[64]
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