Forest of Dean
The ancient Forest of Dean with it's oak, ash, birch and beech trees was one of the great primeval forests of England and the men of the forest, with skills passed down, freely mined coal, stone and minerals in the vast woodlands for 700 years. This was a recognised birthright for them, available to any man born and living within the 'Hundred', effectively anywhere in the Forest of Dean. It was the only place in the whole of Britain where such a tradition was upheld. My family was descended from these freeminers, who like other Forest of Dean people were red haired, this being the origin of our surnames in particular, Fox.
Although free mining gained its official charter in the 13th century, mining in the forest dated even further back, before medieval times, to Neolithic and early Bronze Age eras. Some local seams and caves are seen to have been worked on and off for over 4000 years.
Although free mining gained its official charter in the 13th century, mining in the forest dated even further back, before medieval times, to Neolithic and early Bronze Age eras. Some local seams and caves are seen to have been worked on and off for over 4000 years.
Freeminers would apply to the forest Gaveller, representative of the Crown, for a gale where they regarded there to be iron, coal or stone. Locals had the knack of knowing where to open such gales. All that was required to do this was that one was aged 21 or over and had worked a year and a day in a coal or iron mine or stone quarry.
The customs, laws and priviledges of the peoples have been recorded, one curiosity being that oaths would be taken with a stick of holly held in ones hand. British rulers had the right to call on the freeminers for military service, they not only being skilled in the ways of their profession but also having the repute of being champion archers. They were considered to be a brave wild, robust, and skilful race.
The people were by nature sometimes unruly and rebellious. In the time of King Henry VI merchant boats travelling on the Severn river, at the edge of the forest, were raided by the foresters, multitudes of the people dwelling thereabouts seizing the boats and the corn they carried, threatening the lives of those who resisted and forbidding any complaint to be made. When it was later impressed on the locals that a repeat of such behaviour would be regarded as treason, the people made even more of a riot, doing just the same, helping themselves to goods and throwing overboard the merchants.
Such long standing families of the forest had one particular grave problem, which was that they tended to be regarded as squatters, and so were frequently evicted by the forest authorities. On the one hand they had their ancient rights but on the other the authorities tried to thwart this by making their habitations illegal.
Their cottages were oft referred to as cabins, and indeed they were primitive low dwellings, built hastily in an awareness that the Forest authorities would not so likely pull down those looking to have only been built overnight. Some were of turf and others of wood, mud, or rushes, and most had dry stone walls and turf roofing. They were windowless with paved floors, and at one end would be the fireplace and chimney. This was a long and ongoing battle between the locals and the authorities. Every time the people were evicted as "squatters" they would soon return.
As far back as the 1600's a major expulsion of the settlers was carried out by John Wade, manager of ironworks and woodland for the Commonwealth government. He demolished 400 cabins and cottages, after which only five remained.
The squatters returned though.
In 1671 the Marquess of Worcester, warden of the Forest, ordered the demolition of all cabins except those necessary for officially sanctioned cording and charcoaling operations.
Seven years later the magistrates of the Forest again ordered the removal of squatters from the area.
But they kept on coming back, again and again.
In 1680 a government commission found that 30 cabins were home to 100 people, who had lived all their lives within the royal lands. Again their cabins were demolished.
In the following year 8 cottages were found to have returned.
By the 1700's many people had crept back in, and the first permanent establishment of settlements within the Forest was under way, as the miners and quarrymen at last dared to build proper cottages, taking in land for gardens.
The cottages had always been scattered randomly around the mines and quarries, often in remote places.
Berry Hill where my family lived was one such remote place which saw a lot of early building.
Permanent villages and hamlets had arisen by the mid 1700's.
The forest was home to my ancestors and they refused to be permanently banished from it. Since long and distant times they had lived here.
"There are," it was written in 1780, "deep in the earth vast caverns, scooped out by men's hands, and large as the aisles of churches; and on its surface are extensive labyrinths, worked among the rocks, and now long since overgrown with woods; which, whosoever traces them must see with astonishment, and incline to think them to have been the work of armies rather than of the private labourer. They certainly were the toil of many centuries."
By 1782, it is recorded that there were 40 cottages where my ancestors were making their lives in the Forest at Joyford, including 12 up the hill in the area which would come to be known by 1804 as the Lonk. Just 24 years earlier there had only been a few cottages up on the Lonk. On the lower part of that hill was a beerhouse, the Dog and Muffler, opened in the early 1800's.
The forest people were 'not very orderly' it was still said in 1808, and in 1810 that they were nearly as wretched as anything now existing in Ireland.
By 1851 there were eight houses to the east in Ninewells bottom, then known as the Mire, in that very year my ancestor John Hawkins lodging there as a young single man.
All these homesteads were still regarded to be squatting on crown owned land but they were no more fought against.
Berry Hill was where my ancestors Richard Fox and Eleanor Jones were born, and Newland nearby, where a settlement was also forming, was where ancestor Richard Hawkins was born. Their descendants grew up in Joyford, being baptised at nearby villages, Newland and Staunton, the latter being a place where red iron ore could be found and which at the time had a pub called the Ostrich. All these hamlets and villages were on or around Berry Hill and were part of a bigger area known as West Dean.
The customs, laws and priviledges of the peoples have been recorded, one curiosity being that oaths would be taken with a stick of holly held in ones hand. British rulers had the right to call on the freeminers for military service, they not only being skilled in the ways of their profession but also having the repute of being champion archers. They were considered to be a brave wild, robust, and skilful race.
The people were by nature sometimes unruly and rebellious. In the time of King Henry VI merchant boats travelling on the Severn river, at the edge of the forest, were raided by the foresters, multitudes of the people dwelling thereabouts seizing the boats and the corn they carried, threatening the lives of those who resisted and forbidding any complaint to be made. When it was later impressed on the locals that a repeat of such behaviour would be regarded as treason, the people made even more of a riot, doing just the same, helping themselves to goods and throwing overboard the merchants.
Such long standing families of the forest had one particular grave problem, which was that they tended to be regarded as squatters, and so were frequently evicted by the forest authorities. On the one hand they had their ancient rights but on the other the authorities tried to thwart this by making their habitations illegal.
Their cottages were oft referred to as cabins, and indeed they were primitive low dwellings, built hastily in an awareness that the Forest authorities would not so likely pull down those looking to have only been built overnight. Some were of turf and others of wood, mud, or rushes, and most had dry stone walls and turf roofing. They were windowless with paved floors, and at one end would be the fireplace and chimney. This was a long and ongoing battle between the locals and the authorities. Every time the people were evicted as "squatters" they would soon return.
As far back as the 1600's a major expulsion of the settlers was carried out by John Wade, manager of ironworks and woodland for the Commonwealth government. He demolished 400 cabins and cottages, after which only five remained.
The squatters returned though.
In 1671 the Marquess of Worcester, warden of the Forest, ordered the demolition of all cabins except those necessary for officially sanctioned cording and charcoaling operations.
Seven years later the magistrates of the Forest again ordered the removal of squatters from the area.
But they kept on coming back, again and again.
In 1680 a government commission found that 30 cabins were home to 100 people, who had lived all their lives within the royal lands. Again their cabins were demolished.
In the following year 8 cottages were found to have returned.
By the 1700's many people had crept back in, and the first permanent establishment of settlements within the Forest was under way, as the miners and quarrymen at last dared to build proper cottages, taking in land for gardens.
The cottages had always been scattered randomly around the mines and quarries, often in remote places.
Berry Hill where my family lived was one such remote place which saw a lot of early building.
Permanent villages and hamlets had arisen by the mid 1700's.
The forest was home to my ancestors and they refused to be permanently banished from it. Since long and distant times they had lived here.
"There are," it was written in 1780, "deep in the earth vast caverns, scooped out by men's hands, and large as the aisles of churches; and on its surface are extensive labyrinths, worked among the rocks, and now long since overgrown with woods; which, whosoever traces them must see with astonishment, and incline to think them to have been the work of armies rather than of the private labourer. They certainly were the toil of many centuries."
By 1782, it is recorded that there were 40 cottages where my ancestors were making their lives in the Forest at Joyford, including 12 up the hill in the area which would come to be known by 1804 as the Lonk. Just 24 years earlier there had only been a few cottages up on the Lonk. On the lower part of that hill was a beerhouse, the Dog and Muffler, opened in the early 1800's.
The forest people were 'not very orderly' it was still said in 1808, and in 1810 that they were nearly as wretched as anything now existing in Ireland.
By 1851 there were eight houses to the east in Ninewells bottom, then known as the Mire, in that very year my ancestor John Hawkins lodging there as a young single man.
All these homesteads were still regarded to be squatting on crown owned land but they were no more fought against.
Berry Hill was where my ancestors Richard Fox and Eleanor Jones were born, and Newland nearby, where a settlement was also forming, was where ancestor Richard Hawkins was born. Their descendants grew up in Joyford, being baptised at nearby villages, Newland and Staunton, the latter being a place where red iron ore could be found and which at the time had a pub called the Ostrich. All these hamlets and villages were on or around Berry Hill and were part of a bigger area known as West Dean.