248 FOREST OF DEAN. 
large proportion will be in their prime about thirty 
years hence, and the remainder at later dates. 
Unlike the New Forest, that of Dean is a very rich 
mineral district, where coal and iron mines are worked. 
A large population is engaged in these mines, residing 
on inclosures of land, which have in past times been 
taken from the Forest, dispersed about in very 
irregular order. There is a very ancient and well- 
recognised custom that the inhabitants of the Hundred 
have the right to search for and to work the minerals 
within the Forest, subject to certain customary 
royalties to the Crown—a right not dissimilar to what 
exists in many parts of Europe, notably Spain, but 
not elsewhere known in England. 
The iron mines were worked in very early times, 
as far back as the Romans, and this was doubtless 
facilitated by the Forest providing fuel for smelting 
the ore. There existed till within recent years vast 
heaps of partially smelted ore, called cinders, which 
had been left by early workers, who had not sufficient 
knowledge to extract the ore, and which it was worth 
while to smelt again. These testified to the extent 
of the industry in former times, and to the fact 
that there must have been a large population residing 
within the precincts of the Forest.* The town of 
* Andrew Yarranton, in his work on the “Improvement of 
England by Sea and Land,” printed in 1677, says: “In the Forest 
of Dean and thereabouts the iron is made at this day of cinders, 
being the rough and offal thrown by in the Romans’ time ; they 
then having only foot blasts to melt the ironstone ; but now, by the 
