Mining - Ironworks and Early Transport |
Coal mining, on a small scale, had taken place
in the area since before Roman times, 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.
Initially, it proved impossible to produce coke
from the local coal that was ideal for smelting
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.
Robert Forester Mushet (1811–1891) was a
British metallurgist and businessman, born on 8
April 1811, at Coleford. He was the youngest son
of Scottish parents, Agnes Wilson and David
Mushet; an ironmaster, formerly of the Clyde,
Alfreton and Whitecliff Ironworks.
In 1818/9 David Mushet built the foundry
at Darkhill. Robert spent his formative years
studying
metallurgy with his father and took over the
management of Darkhill in 1845. In 1848 he moved
to the newly constructed Forest Steel Works on
the edge of the Darkhill site where he carried
out over ten thousand experiments in ten years
before moving to the Titanic Steelworks in
1862. In 1876 he was awarded the Bessemer Gold
Medal by the Iron and Steel Institute, their
highest award for developing an inexpensive way
to make high quality steel while perfecting the
Bessemer Process and inventing the first
commercially produced steel alloy.
Our photos show Robert Forester Mushet and what
remains of the Darkhill Furnace today.
In 1787 the
Forest had 121 coal mines. 90 of those
were in production. Their output was
1,816 tons a week and they employed 662
miners (many being women and children).
The majority of the mines were in
Parkend and Ruardean walks with the
outcrops most intensively worked running
northwards from Cinderford to Nailbridge
and then south-westwards across Serridge
Green to Beechenhurst Hill. Those
running northwards being from Whitecroft
to Moseley Green and Staple Edge, and
those on the west side of the Forest
towards Coleford.
The lack of good roads in the Forest of
Dean meant that until the 19th century
coal and ore was mainly transported
through the Forest by packhorse. More
distant markets were supplied through
the docks on the rivers Severn and Wye
to a large part of Gloucestershire as
well as Hereford, Monmouth, Chepstow and
Bristol. However, because of these poor
transport arrangements, by the 1790s
Dean coal became prohibitively expensive
to outside markets and sales were lost
to mines in Monmouthshire, Staffordshire
and Shropshire.
The earliest tramroad in the Forest had
been built by free-miner James Teague in
1795 to transport coal from his mine at
Edge End to the River Wye at Lower
Lydbrook from where it was loaded on to
barges.

The route of Teague's 3 mile 1795
Railway

Crump Meadow branch tram-line around
1926
The Bullo Pill Railway was an
early horse drawn railway. The
track was of approximately 4 ft gauge,
laid as a plateway, with rails of
L-shaped section, spiked on to stone
blocks.The
rails were supplied by the Ayleford
Foundry, near Soudley; and a branch line
was constructed from that foundry.
The tramline was completed in
1810. All traffic was horse-drawn, using
privately owned four-wheeled wagons
with an oak underframe supporting a
hopper-shaped body, and unflanged
cast-iron wheels. Map shows the 'S' shaped twists and
turns of the original tramway
terminating at Bullo Pill dock.
Bullo Pill, on the Severn near Newnham,
originally a small tidal creek off the
main river used for boat building, was
developed by building a dock basin with
lock gates, and wharves for loading
goods for shipment. Coal, iron, timber
and stone from the Forest could be
loaded at the dock and exported on the
Severn trows up or down the river. In
addition there was a steady flow of
barges carrying
cargo across the river
to Framilode and then along the
Stroudwater Canal to Brimscombe, Stroud
and Chalford.
An
Act of Parliament received the Royal
Assent on 5 May 1826; turning the line
into a public company, now named the
Forest of Dean Railway Company. It was
taken over by the South Wales Railway in
1851 and the GWR in 1863. The track was
converted to standard gauge in 1872.
In the age of steam not all the tramways
in the Forest of Dean were replaced by
railways. Tracks with different gauges
continued in operation throughout the
19th century. These different lines met
at interchange sidings where the coal
could be transferred from one set of
wagons to another. Aerial photographs
clearly show one such set of sidings at
Bilson Green, to the west of Cinderford.
There coal from Cornelius Brain's
Strip-and-at-it and Trafalgar collieries
was transferred from his tramway to the
Forest of Dean Railway.
In 1811-12 there was an attempt to
excavate a tunnel under the River
Severn, apparently as an extension to
the railway. It began on the bank
between Bullo Pill and Newnham, and was
intended to emerge on the far side near
Arlingham.
The proprietors of the
Bullo Pill Railway Co. had already, in
September 1809, completed the Haie Hill
tunnel and acquired the rights to an
existing crossing at Newnham Ferry. They
had began construction of the tunnel,
from the West bank. This tunnel was to
carry road traffic and horse-drawn coal
wagons on the tramroad. The bore was to
be 13 ft high and 12 ft wide.
The Haie
Hill Tunnel. Constructed on
the Bullo Pill tramway claims to be
the world's first railway tunnel. That
may not be true but at the time,
covering one mile, it was certainly the
longest.The children of
Bullo Pill used the tunnel to reach
their school at Soudley, having to time
their walks so as not to meet any
trains.
This
tramroad would have been built to match
that already constructed onshore, as a
four foot gauge plateway with L-section
cast iron rails. Work began and the
tunnel was extended well under the
river.
On Friday 13th November 1812
water broke into the tunnel. It was
immediately flooded, and fortunately the
workmen all managed to escape. Unlike
the flooding of the later Severn Tunnel,
this flooding was too much for the
rudimentary pumps of the day and so work
was abandoned.
Opened in 1812, the line ran between Bixhead Quarry and Bicslade
Wharf. It served the Forest of Dean Stone Firm, Union Pit, (also
known as the Bixshead Slade Pit), Monument Mine, which still
operates today, Mine Train Quarry, Bixslade Low Level, (also
known as Bixslade Deep Level), Hopewell Mapleford Colliery,
Bixslade High Level, (also known as Bixslade Land Level), Spion
Kop Quarry, Bixhead Quarry and Phoenix Colliery as well as
several other minor quarries. Extensions and sidings to the
quarries were constructed continually between 1812 and 1855 to
cope with the different industries of the area. In 1855, the
tramroad reached its largest extent, at that time there were two
passing loops.
Bicslade Tram, at the Dean Heritage Centre From 1874, when the
Severn and Wye Railway was converted into locomotive power, the
cargo carried by the line were transferred at Bicslade Wharf
onto trains to be shipped to their destinations. In 1899 stone
from Mine Train Quarry was being sent via the branch to the
Marquis of Bute for work on Cardiff Castle.
Traffic slowly declined during the early years of the 20th
century; on 25 July 1944 the last stones was transported via the
line, coal traffic stopped in 1946. The tramroad was operated by
horse-power until traffic finally ceased in the 1950s, by which
time it was the last working horse-powered tramroad operating in
the Forest of Dean.
Today nearly all the Tramroad has been converted into public
footpaths and, nearby, Cannop Ponds (which used the tramroad as
a dam) is now a popular visitor attraction and picnic site,
owned by the Forestry Commission. A guide along the path of the
tramroad has been published by the local history society and is
available in many nearby shops.
One Freemine and three quarries continue to operate in the
Bixslade valley, largely hidden by the picturesque woodland.
Two of the trams on the line have been preserved and are now on
public display at the Dean Heritage Centre and at the Narrow
Gauge Railway Museum in Tywyn. (Wikipedia)


The tramway and railway today. The wild
boar have been doing their own
excavating!

The Railway System in 1911 |



The Severn Railway Bridge from the Lydney side
- see
Forgotten Relics
Website
The Severn and Wye Railway
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The first Severn
and Wye Railway
was a small
horse-drawn rail and canal network which
originated as the Lydney and Lydbrook
Railway Company in 1809 and was
initially constructed to allow
exploitation of the mineral resources of
the Forest of Dean.
In 1810, the Severn and Wye Railway and
Canal Company began construction of a
tramway and the Lydney Canal.
With the opening of the South Wales
Railway in 1851, a link between the two
was created at Lydney. In 1868 a 7 ft
1/4 in (2,140 mm) broad gauge was added,
to run alongside the existing tramway,
but work began to replace both with
standard gauge tracks in 1872After
bankruptcy in 1893 the line was
purchased jointly by the Midland Railway
and the Great Western Railway. At its
largest extent the railway consisted of
39 miles (63 km) of track. Lydney Canal
was opened in 1813 and closed in 1977.
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The seal of
the Severn & Wye Railway & Canal Company
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Work
began in about 1832, and there were two shafts by 1835. Pumping
and winding engines were working by 1841 and there were four
shafts by 1854. Further expansion included deepening of the
shafts (to 936 ft) and acquisition of adjacent gales, and the
colliery became one of the largest in Dean, producing 86,508
tons in 1856 and 800-900 tons/day in 1906. 594 persons were
employed underground, with 110 on the surface, in 1899.
In 1898 the colliery
had broken the record for the output from a
Forest of Dean colliery due to the fact that in
the development of the works great foresight was
shown with regard to the future and the pit was
one of the best of the Forest housecoal
collieries. In 1899 there were 594 persons
employed underground and 110 on the surface.
Those working below were in safe hands whilst
being wound up and down the shaft as the winding
engine in addition to the normal break also had
a steam brake fitted at which a second man
always attended whilst men were riding. This
attention to detail and safety appears to have
permiated throughout the management and working
of the pit.
The Deep Pit was
later sunk further, to a depth of 936 feet,
until the Brazilly seam was reached. This
deepening passed through a further eighteen
seams, the more important being the Twenty Inch
or Smith Coal,the Lowery, Starkey, Rockey and
Churchway High Delf. The area of coal worked was
about 1,000 acres. The screening plant too was
modernised and by 1935 was capable of handling
up to eight hundred tons per day. In later years
the big fear at Lightmoor was water. It was this
that made the Lightmoor management purchase the
Speech House Hill Colliery in 1903 and then to
purchase Trafalgar Colliery jointly with Foxes
Bridge in 1919.
The closure of both
Crump Meadow and Foxes Bridge put a great strain
on Lightmoor, which together with the slump in
demand for coal during the 1930s almost brought
about closure but the fatal day was delayed
until June 1940. Although the official date of
closure was Saturday the 8th June 1940 some
small coal was still being forwarded for a
further three weeks although the last wagon of
coal to go over the Lightmoor Railway was
dispatched on the 5th June. At the time of
closure the colliery was served by one Severn &
Wye train per week, the 9.30 am Lydney -
Coleford freight which traversed the Mineral
Loop on Fridays only. 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.

East Dean Pits &
Railways 1894
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.
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