The Forest of Dean Coalfield, lying under the Forest of Dean, in northwest Gloucestershire, is one of the smaller coalfields in the British Isles, although intensive mining during the 19th and 20th centuries has had enormous influence on the landscape, history, culture and economy of the area.
For hundreds of years, mining in the Forest of Dean Coalfield has been regulated through a system of Freemining, in which individuals, if they qualify, are granted leases to mine in specified areas, known as gales. The Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946 specifically exempted the Forest of Dean, due to its unique form of ownership and history, allowing this unique local privilege to continue intact.
The last of the big gales closed in 1965 and today, only a handful of small collieries are still operating.[1]
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The Forest of Dean Coalfield was formed during Upper Carboniferous times, when the area was a nearshore-intertidal environment of semi-marine estuaries and swamps. The area today is a raised basin plateau of palaeozoic rocks folded in the Variscan Orogeny. It occurs in a raised asymmetrical syncline with a steeper eastern limb that surfaces in the area of Staple Edge and the Soudley Valley producing the steeply dipping strata. An unusual feature of the Forest of Dean Coalfield is that its edges are almost entirely exposed at the surface.[2]
Mining in the coalfield has always been hampered by the excessive amount of water encountered underground - trapped by the basin shaped strata. Water drains into the basin by general percolation and, more directly, via surface watercourses. For much of their length, streams in the area run over impervious clay deposits, but where valleys cut through the rim of the basin, carboniferous limestone and sandstone is exposed, allowing water to penetrate underground via swallow holes, cracks and fissures. Water also enters the basin through geological faults.
In an attempt to reduce the pumping requirement, many mine owners 'waterproofed' the beds of watercourses with conduits or channels, wherever water loss was thought likely to occur. These artificial drainage features can be seen, at some point or other, on almost every watercourse within the mining area.[3]
| “ | All male persons born or hereafter to be born and abiding within the said Hundred of St Briavels, of the age of twenty one years and upwards, who shall have worked a year and a day in a coal or iron mine within the said Hundred of St Briavels, shall be deemed and taken to be Free Miners. | ” |
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—The Dean Forest (Mines) Act 1838. |
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For hundreds of years, mining in the Forest of Dean Coalfield has been regulated through a system of Freemining; where individuals, if they qualify, can lease a specified area in which to mine. Freeminers, were instrumental in recapturing Berwick upon Tweed several times (1296, 1305 and 1315) and it is thought that freemining rights were granted by Edward I as a reward for their endeavours. The Free Miner's Mine Law Court sat at the Speech House from 1682 and the earliest known existing copy of Dean Miners’ Laws and Privileges, known locally as the Book of Dennis, dates from 1610, but the copy itself contains references to much earlier origins.[4]
Towards the end of the 18th century, as the industrial revolution began to take hold, increasing demand for coal and iron led to conflicting mining interests and the Court became bogged down with disputes. Deep coal and iron reserves could not be mined without substantial investment and the Crown became determined to introduce the free market into the Forest. They began by outlawing the Mine Law Court in 1777 and all the documents from the Mine Law Court were stolen by Crown Officials.
A Royal Commission was appointed in 1831 to inquire into the nature of the mineral interests and freemining customs in the Forest of Dean, leading to the passing of the Dean Forest Mines Act 1838,[5] which now forms the basis of Freemining law. It confirmed the Freeminers' exclusive right to the minerals of the Forest of Dean, but also allowed Freeminers to sell their gales to a non-Freeminers; further opening up the Forest to outside industrialists.[6]
As of 2010 the gender requirement has been recognised as archaic and women are now allowed to become freeminers.[7]
Coal mining, on a small scale, took place in the area since before Roman times,[8] but it was not until the industrial revolution, including the construction of coke-fired ironworks in the Forest itself, that exploitation of the Forest of Dean Coalfield occurred to any great degree.[9]
Initially, it proved impossible to produce coke from the local coal that was ideal for smelting[10] and, almost certainly, this was a major factor in the failure of three early furnaces within a decade of them opening. Around 1820, however, Moses Teague, whilst borrowing the cupola furnace at Darkhill Ironworks, discovered a way to make good iron from local coke, greatly advancing the iron and coal industries of the Forest of Dean.
By the mid-nineteenth century, there were more than 300 coal workings in the Forest of Dean area and it was said there were more men working below ground than there were working above.[11]
The Coal Industry Nationalisation Act, of 1946, specifically exempted the Forest of Dean, due to its unique form of ownership and history, allowing Freemining privileges to continue intact. Some large colliery gales were subsequently compulsorily purchased by the National Coal Board (NCB), but these remained under the Freemining system, with a royalty paid to the Freeminers, by the NCB, as a share of the minerals extracted.
The last of the NCB gales closed in 1965, but freemining continues to be an important aspect of Forest of Dean culture and there are probably still around 150 Free Miners alive today, although only a handful of collieries are still operating.[12]