A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



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 penalty 

 of IOJ. 



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, or 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 forever loose and entirely forfeit 

 his freedome as touching the mines, and be utterly 

 expelled out of the same, and all the working tooles 

 and habitt be burned before his face, and he never 

 afterwards to be a witness or to be believed in any 

 matter whatsoever. 1 



A period of about five years from the time 

 that the last was held brings us to the eighth 

 record of the Mine Court in 1692. It was 

 held, as usual, at Clearwell. The court levied 

 a further contribution of \id. upon every miner, 

 with an additional is. on every mine horse, with 

 which to clear off certain charges incurred in a 

 recent suit in the Court of Exchequer at West- 

 minster. 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. bd. 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. 2 



Dr. Parsons, the antiquary, thus describes the 

 industries of the forest at this time : 



It abounds, he says, with springs for the most part 

 of a brownish or amber colour, occasioned by their 

 passage through the veines of oker, of which there is a 

 great plenty, or else through the rusty 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 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) is 

 dug in the 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 slimy 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 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 rents small, they made use 

 of no other bellows but such as were moved by 

 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 called 

 their cinder, and is found in an inexhaustible quantity 

 throughout all parts of the country where any 

 blomerys formerly stood, for so they were then 

 called. 3 



The ninth Mine Law Court was held ii 

 1694, and the tenth in 1701. The proceed- 

 ings of the latter were as follows : Certain tem- 

 porary orders, dated 12 March, 1699, and 

 ii November, 1700, regulating the loading of 

 horses and carts, forbidding any coal to be sent 

 off by the River Wye below Welsh 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 hearings 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 twenty- 

 one hundredweight was fixed as a weight of coal 

 to be sold for 5*. 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 

 rest being marksmen. 4 



In 1707,' and again in 1717,* two further 

 sessions were held, the chief object of which 

 seems to have been the raising of additional 

 funds with which to defend the rights of the 

 free miners against interlopers, as well as to- 

 enforce the prohibition of mineral lawsuits in, 



1 Nicholls, Forest of Dean, 54. 



' Ibid. 56. 



' Nicholls, Forest of Dean, 56, 57. 



4 Ibid. 62 ; Award of Forest of Dean Commrs. 14.. 



6 Nicholls, Forest of Dean, 63. 



228 



6 Ibid. 65. 



