A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



to be raised about Pucklechurch, but it is possible 

 that the deposits within easy reach had been 

 worked out by the thirteenth century. It is at 

 least fairly certain that the iron forges of Berkeley 

 were towards the close of that century, if not 

 before, supplied from the Forest of Dean. Iron 

 ore has also been found elsewhere to the east of 

 the Severn, as in the Marlstone of the Middle 

 Lias at Upton Cheyney, North Nibley, and 

 Stinchcombe, but does not repay the cost of 

 working in the present conditions of trade. In 

 the Bristol district no ironstone was returned as 

 having been raised during 1905, according to the 

 reports of His Majesty's Inspectors, under the 

 Coal Mines Regulation Acts and the Metal- 

 liferous Mines Acts. 



It is difficult to say exactly when coal was first 

 worked to the east of the Severn, but probably at 

 a later period than iron, as the early forges were 

 fed with charcoal fuel, and coal when first dug 

 was not welcomed by the wealthy for domestic 

 use. From an entry on the patent roll, 1 

 4 Edw. I, it is clear that coal had been dug in 

 Kingswood in the reign of his predecessor, and 

 probably even before that, as the constable of 

 Bristol Castle is ordered to permit Petronilla de 

 Vivonia, wife of David Le Blund, to dig sea- 

 coal in her wood within the king's chase of 

 Kingswood, inasmuch as it is proved by inqui- 

 sition that she and her ancestors from time out 

 of mind were wont to dig it in the said wood 

 till Robert Waleraund, then constable, wilfully 

 hindered her. By the year 1284, and perhaps 

 much earlier, an entry of money received from 

 sea-coal diggings within the limits of the forest 

 of Bristol or Kingswood had become a regular 

 item in the constable's accounts. This in the 

 compotus 2 for the year 12-13 Edw. I amounted 

 to 29;. <)d. In a similar account 3 for the years 

 24-28 Edw. I we are actually told the names of 

 these early colliers Richard Le Reve, Robert 

 At Pyle, William Long, William Copep (junior), 

 Robert Cory, John Chanflor, Alan North, 

 Thomas Serle, David de Mogelane, and William 

 Popok. During the last of the years accounted 

 for a sum of 241. was received from this source. 

 It is probable, but not perhaps quite certain, that 

 these moneys represented the sums paid for 

 licences to dig, or the value of rent paid in kind. 

 In a similar account 4 more than a hundred years 

 later there is an entry of 26*. Sd. from the 

 ' diggings carbonum terrestrium sold in this year.' 

 If sea-coal is meant, the variant is very curious.' 

 By the early years of the seventeenth century 

 the crown rights at Kingswood had in practice, 



1 M. 4. ' Mins. Accts. bdle. 85 1, No. I (P.R.O.). 



'Ibid. bdle. 8 51, No. 6. 



'Mins. Accts. bdle. 840, No. 9 (13 Hen. IV- 

 I Hen. V). 



5 Cf. however the ' carbonem terreum ' of a Swan- 

 sea charter of 1305 which apparently refers to 

 mineral coal. Francis, Charters Granted to Swansea, J. 



partly through careless leasing and partly through 

 encroachment, shrunk within very narrow limits. 

 Norden declared 6 in 1615 that the ' coale mines 

 and all other profittes altogether are carryed from 

 his Majestic by unknowne righte.' The produc- 

 tion of coal had increased considerably, and 

 although witnesses would confess to j20O worth 

 only being taken, it was probably more than twice 

 as much. A curious complaint made by Norden 

 is worth notice, that the ' coale mines also 

 devoure the principall hollies in all partes of the 

 forest for the supportation of their pitts.' One 

 Player was at this time the ' generall fermer of 

 the coales,' no doubt under patent from the 

 Crown. His monopoly 7 had been taken very ill 

 by the citizens of Bristol, who had petitioned the 

 Privy Council. They had been accustomed to 

 buy coal at 3^. a bushel, but Player would only 

 allow a few pits to be worked, and thus by an 

 artificial scarcity enhanced prices. Furthermore 

 for the most modern trust methods are no novelty 

 beneath the sun he had reduced the capacity of 

 his sacks from 2 bushels to i bushel 3 pecks. 8 



In spite of the uncertainty of the crown rights 

 still remaining in Kingswood, various leases 

 were in the seventeenth century granted in refer- 

 ence to minerals, and the grantees often found 

 themselves in consequent litigation with land- 

 owners and occupiers who alleged prescriptive 

 rights. It may also be mentioned that under the 

 Commonwealth (1657) iron-smelting with pit 

 coal was tried near Bristol, but proved a failure, 

 though Captain John Copley, the patentee, had 

 the help of Dud Dudley. 9 By 1679 Kingswood 

 had become such a typical colliery district that 

 the coal-pits were recommended to visitors to the 

 neighbourhood as a sight worth viewing, 10 and half 

 a century afterwards a vivid picture of the condi- 

 tion of the miners will be found in the journals 

 of Whitefield. Rudder, 11 writing of St. George's, 

 Bristol, in 1779, declares that some of the coal- 

 pits were of prodigious depth, and particularly 

 singles out the duke of Beaufort's mine at Two 

 Mile Hill as being 107 fathoms deep. Already 

 ' fire-engines ' at this and other mines were in 

 use for pumping out water, and local conditions 

 had probably forced on a more extended use of 

 machinery than at the same period in the Forest 

 of Dean. At Westerleigh, also, and Abson and 

 Wick, coal was being worked to a considerable 

 extent at this time. 



We are unable to trace in detail the later 

 history of the Bristol coalfield, including under 

 this name the whole mineral district between 



S.P. Dom. Jas. I, 1615, boodv, 46. 



7 Had. MS. 368, fol. ii. 



8 Cf. as to this last grievance an order (Egerton MSS. 

 2044, fol. 1 2), that in Bristol coal must either be sold 

 in exact I or 2 bushel sacks or else ' by heape,' accord- 

 ing to the statute bushel. 



' Dud Dudley, Mettallum Martis (ed. 1665), 25. 



10 King, Life of Locke (ed. 1830), i, 250. 



11 Op. cit. 459. 



236 



