A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



mines to the west of the Severn, which may 

 further claim a certain precedence from the 

 peculiar interest attaching to the immemorial 

 usages and customs which have governed their 

 working. 



No detailed description of the geology l of the 

 Forest of Dean can be given here, but it may be 

 stated briefly that the strata of the Carboniferous 

 system form a basin which is more perfect 

 than any other Coalfield in England, 2 the 

 Coal Measures being encircled by belts of Mill- 

 stone Grit and Carboniferous Limestone, while 

 the last of these rests for the most part on the 

 Devonians or Old Red Sandstone. On the 

 south-eastern limits of the forest, however, near 

 Blakeney and Lydney, the Carboniferous Lime- 

 stone ' thins out ' and ultimately disappears, 

 owing to the overlapping of the Coal Measures 

 which here apparently rest directly on the Old 

 Red Sandstone. The coal field covers some 

 34 square miles, but of the fifteen fairly work- 

 able seams 3 of coal only eight or nine are two or 

 more feet thick. Deposits of iron 4 have been 

 found and worked, both in the lower part of the 

 Millstone Grit and the upper portion of the thick 

 Limestone formation. 



Ample evidence 5 is forthcoming that the 

 iron deposits in and about the Forest of Dean 

 were known to the Romans and worked by 

 them, and attention has been drawn by various 

 observers to ancient excavations and surface- 

 workings, some of which may be attributed to 

 the period of the Roman occupation. What 

 proportion of the 'cinders' found in the forest 

 can claim an age equally great is rather difficult to 

 determine ; but in certain instances coins and 

 other objects of the Roman period have been 

 found in close connexion with heaps of slag. 

 That the iron of Dean continued to be worked 

 during at least the later Anglo-Saxon period is 

 proved by the evidence of Domesday 6 that in the 

 days of the Confessor Gloucester rendered to 

 the king as part of its farm thirty-six dicres of 

 iron, probably horse-shoes, 7 and 100 rods of iron 

 suitable for making nails for the king's ships. 

 This iron no doubt came from the Forest of 



1 See further V.C.H. G/ouc. i, ' Geology,' and for a 

 general description of the Forest of Dean, the ' Topo- 

 graphy ' and ' Forestry.' 



' Hull, Coal-Fields of Great Britain (5 ed. 1905), 

 p. 80. 



* The actual number of existent seams, however, is 

 stated by Mr. H. Bauermann, F.G.S., to be thirty-one. 

 Encycl. Brit. \\, 50. 



4 J. D. Kendall, Iron Ores of Great Britain, 128. 



4 V.C.H. G/ouc. i, ' Roman Remains.' Nicholls, 

 Iron Making in the forest of Dean, 7 et seq. Trans. 

 Bristol and G/ouc. Arch. Soc. ii, 2 1 6. 



6 Dam. Bk. i, 1620. C. S. Taylor, Dom. Surv. of 

 G/ouc. 126. 



' Horse-shoes were a speciality of Gloucester 

 manufacture. Note also the armorial bearings of the 

 city. Bristol and G/ouc. Arch. Soc. Trans, ii, 235-40. 



Dean, for only about a hundred years after the 

 entry of this render in the great survey, Gerald 

 the archdeacon, in his Itinerary, 6 speaks of the 

 ' noble forest of Dean (Danubie) which supplies 

 Gloucester with venison and great store (copiam) 

 of iron,' and many years before his book was 

 written the Pipe Rolls of Henry II furnish 

 abundant references to the iron industry of 

 Gloucestershire. The implements of peace, and 

 the missiles and engines of war, shoes for the 

 king's horses, iron for the king's ships, were then 

 largely procured from our county. As early as 

 the Pipe Roll of the fourth year of this sovereign 

 we hear of iron sent to Woodstock, 9 and later 

 this brief entry is illustrated by a record 10 of the 

 thirty-first year of ' 30 pickaxes, and 3 iron 

 hammers and 4 iron levers sent to Woodstock 

 for the king's work.' About Ii66 n ^5 ibs. 

 was paid by the king's writ for ' 2 tuns (tonellis) 

 full of arrows and engines sent over sea,' and four 

 years 12 after, nails and rods were furnished for a 

 ship, and under the account of Gloucester town 

 we hear of i 51. 6d. paid for iron and nails for 

 the horses of the king. A little later 13 the pre- 

 parations for the Irish expedition left traces on the 

 Gloucestershire Pipe Roll, '^i 2s. lid. for 100 

 axes sent into Ireland,' while under the account 

 of the town we have an entry of j 6 15*. for 

 1,000 spades, and of^iy IQJ. for 60,000 nails sent 

 to the same destination, while enormous quanti- 

 ties of nails were also dispatched for the repair of 

 the royal palace at Winchester. But not the 

 least interesting of these references to the great 

 county industry is found at the end of Henry's 

 reign, 14 ' 8 1 6s. 3^. for iron for the king's works 

 for his journey (in itinere) to Jerusalem,' that 

 Crusade to which the broken warrior was vowed 

 but which he was destined never to accomplish. 



The Pipe Rolls of Richard carry on the story, 

 and Gloucestershire is again to the fore in the 

 preparations for the Eastern expedition, 16 ^33 1 8s. 

 being paid for 50,000 horse-shoes (ferris equorum 

 e duplici clavatura} y and 100 for iron for the 

 furnishing of the royal ships. Four years 16 later 

 a small payment of I is. yd. was made for the 

 purchase of 1 2 quarters of iron for the repairs of 

 the royal hunting-lodge at Brill (Brehull]. Such 

 notices of the requisition of iron from Gloucester- 

 shire when work was in progress at any of the 

 royal houses are also found on the rolls of John, 17 

 and in his reign a considerable quantity of the 

 metal was sent to Poitou. 18 These references 

 illustrate clearly the importance of the industry, 

 based largely on the output of the forest mines, 

 which gave Gloucestershire a place of pre- 

 eminence right into the fourteenth century, if 



8 Giraldus Camb. Opera (Rolls Ser.), vi, 55, 

 'Hunter, Fife Rolls, 168. 



10 Pipe Roll, 31 Hen. II. 



11 Ibid. 13 Hen. II. 

 " Ibid. 1 8 Hen. II. 

 15 Ibid. 2 Ric. I. 



" Ibid. 17 Hen. II. 

 " Ibid. 34 Hen. II. 

 I6 Ibid. 6 Ric. I. 

 17 e.g. Pipe Rolls, 7 & 9 John. I8 Ibid. 8 John. 



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