This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler.

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.

PREFACE.

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.

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

CHAPTER 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

thickets 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

Stone” 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;

but 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,

already 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

Bearse 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.

The 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;

but, 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

fall 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.:—

From 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

buttresses, 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

these 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

this 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.

The 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

each 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

Ruardean,” 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]

The 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

quarter 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

acres 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

of 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

resisted, 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.

A 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

of 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.

CHAPTER 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,

wood, 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

was 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

questioned 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,

and 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

foot, “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,

on 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

they 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

tumbled 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

by 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

flight, 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,

to 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

the 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

Great 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,

living 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

oaks, 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,

and 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

“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 such 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

into 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

Robert 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.

CHAPTER 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 or 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.

The 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

were 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

a 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

fire 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

as “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

used 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

“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.

The 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

Worcester 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.

They 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

like 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.”

CHAPTER 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

valuable 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

cost £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

green 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.

The 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

prevent 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

directed 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

the 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 protestations; 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.; and 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

within 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

should 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

bottom 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.

We 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 signatures 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.”

CHAPTER 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

year 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

were 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

that 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

Deputy-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,

sheep, &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

3 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,

the 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

considerable 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.”

The 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

navy. 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 the 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

at 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.

CHAPTER 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

reduced 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

1788, [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

length 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

experiments 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

twenty 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,

and 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

way 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,

divided 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