DEAN FOREST.
frO the public generally the tract of country lying in the wedge of land which separates the Severn from the Wye is best known as the seat of extensive Coal and Iron Mines. Those who have not visited the district would therefore be ready to picture to themselves a scene similar to the Black Country,—a bare, smoky wilderness, lit up at night with lurid fires, devoid of vegetation almost, and full of dreary villages and dank towns of an inexpressibly sunless appearance, not pleasant to see or to think of. Such a notion would, however, be utterly mistaken, for the Forest of Dean is a reality still, in spite of its mines, and many parts of it are almost as solitary as if it were yet the undisturbed haunt of the hart and the hind, the wolf and the boar. Through much of its extent it is nnpeopled and covered with timber, amid which the mining " plant " is dotted down here and there, and well-nigh hidden. Probably nowhere else in the world within so limited an area—the total extent of the actual Forest is now less than 20,000 acres—is a scene so singular to be found, or so much mineral extracted with so little defacement of the land- scape. The collieries put out some 900,000 tons of coal a year, and from 160,000 to 180,000 tons of iron. ore are extracted as well, and still the district is a forest belonging to the Crown, covered over 14,000 acres of its extent with oak plantations, which are carefully nursed and tended by Crown officials, as a source of supply of wood for the Navy.
The method by which these apparently incongruous circum- stances have been reconciled and made to settle down side by side makes a very curious chapter of social history. Modern require- ments have fitted themselves between the barriers of ancient usage in Dean Forest in quite unusual ways. The Forest is an old Crown domain, over which, from a very early date, the people possessed some singular rights, due in part to the minerals that were found in it. These rights grew out of long- established usage in most cases, and may be said to be at present reduced to two,—common right, and the peculiar
privilege of free miners. The former does not apply to all the Forest, nor to any of it for all the year. By an Act of 1831 it was limited and defined, so that there are only about 7,500 acres upon which the right can be actually exercised for about six months, so far as pasturage is concerned. The right of free mining and quarrying has, however, no such limit, and it is a very -curious one. It appears to have become defined and consolidated in some degree in the reign of James I., and before that time the 'custom may be said to have existed pretty much in defiance of the authorities. By this right, any person born not merely in the Forest, or on what are now its borders, but within the hundred of St. Briavels, and who works in a mine for a year and a day, is -entitled to claim registration as a free miner, and to demand possession of what may be called a mining allotment, should there be any such vacant or unassigned. The people of the Forest seem to value this right very highly, and to some of them it has been, and may still be, very profitable, but it is a privilege that can at this day do but little good to the majority of those entitled to .claim it. All the coal has been long ago assigned, except some of the deeper-lying beds—for it can be assigned in strata as well as within certain areas—and there is not much of the iron remain- ing unallotted. The custom is, however, in full force, and no one can get possession of a mine, or a "gale," as it is called, except through the " galee " to whom it has been assigned. Few of the mines now in operation are in the possession of the " galees," but they must all have been leased from them ; and were a lease by any chance to lapse, the Crown is bound to assign it to the first free miner who applieerand to no one else. In the case of iron "gales," assignments have not unfrequently been made upon which what is called " dead-rent " has been paid, in order to pre- vent the assignment from lapsing for many years before the " galee " could find capitalists rich enough to sink the shafts and begin working. If a free miner discovers a new, unopened spot that he thinks suitable for a mine, he can require its assignment to him by the Queen's " Gaveller," or Controller of the " Gales " of the Forest ; and on the payment of a small fee it is made over to him, provided it does not inter- fere with other works in existence. Possession is taken with the following quaint ceremony :—" The gaveller cuts a stick, and asking the party how many terns or partners he has, cuts a notch for every partner and one for the King ; a turf is then cut, and the stick forked down by two other sticks, the turf put over it, and the party galing the work is then con- sidered to be put in full possession." The Queen is, theo- retically, a partner in all mines in the Forest to the extent of -one-fifth, but is at no charges in getting the mineral. On the con- trary, the other partners have to bear all costs, and pay sundry fees and rents besides, up to the time that the coal or metal ore is reached. Then the fifth is usually commuted for a fixed charge -or royalty paid to the Crown on every ton raised. The freehold -of the Forest is in fact entirely in the possession of the Crown, and it claims rent in this strange fashion on the mines as lord of the soil, while retaining absolute control of that soil. Its income from this source is about £15,-000 a year.
This quaint privilege, with its attaching duties and obligations, -doubtless had a considerable effect upon the condition of the Foresters at one time ; andthey cling to it still with some tenacity, although the great influx of population which modern develop- anent has caused makes the right of little worth to most of them mow. Formerly it probably tended to foster constant openings of the ground at short intervals, and careless grubbing-up of the minerals near the surface ; but the demands of modern trade have long compelled miners of that primitive order to give way to the -capitalist, and grants being in perpetuity so long as the condi- tions of partnership with the Crown are fulfilled, rights that a -" galee " has once sold are very unlikely ever to come back to the _people again. It is not directly this custom, however, which has _kept the land uninhabited, and although unlawful digging in the King's forest gradually hardened itself into a right of this kind, which in its modern guise seems to assort so ill with forestry, in other respects the rights of the Crown may be said to be intact, and probably this custom helped to keep them intact. Therefore we have the strange spectacle of a country dotted with mines, but destitute of _miners. Throughout the 11,000 acres specially reserved by the Crown for oak-growing, and over which common rights are denied, mines may be sunk, but houses—except those necessary for the mining machinery —cannot be built, either there or on the commonable lands, for the tenure of the mine and the tenure of the surface- land are entirely different things. And thus, instead of each mine gathering round it a village, it remains amid a soli- tude. The miners have to settle themselves round the out- skirts of the forest, upon tracts of land which have become free- hold in the possession of their inhabitants by what may be called splatter's right In the latter part of last century and the beginning of the present, when mining was gradually rising into an important trade, villages—such as Cinderford and Coleford- were thus formed, and the Crown at last gave the inhabitants the freehold. To places like these all miners have to retire, no matter how far into the heart of the Forest their work may be. Many of them walk six miles in a day—three each way—to their work ; few live within a mile's distance. Round the pear-shaped tract forming the Forest, a population of over 20,000 has gradually accumulated, who more or less have to submit to this hardship. The Crown does not encourage building, will only in fact grant leases for thirty-one years ; and possessing valuable plantations of oaks, mostly in trees fifty to seventy years old, naturally objects to have them spoilt. There is no oak like the English, it is said, and that oak is scarce. If the Royal Forests do not grow it, it may soon be unobtainable. So the Forest is kept green amid the furnace-smoke; no good roads penetrate it ; railways cross it or skirt its edges to gather the minerals, but are of no use to the labouring men who swarm on its borders. Being squatters mostly, these have not built model villages, and have usually considered streets and roadways super- fluities, while sanitary arrangements are unknown. The state of things is such, that a good deal of attention has been drawn to it in recent years, and many proposals have been made to try and remove the grievances. A local Boardtried to reform Cinderford, but it could not get the people to pay rates, and dissolveditself, some of the members having to find moneys of their own to discharge obligations incurred. The Crown Authorities do not see their way, either, to provide a sewage system for people who have stolen its lands. The making of roads is nearly as difficult a matter, for before the Crown can be expected to make them, it is urged that the people should prove that they would be for its benefit, and it cannot spend for mine-lessees' interests. The Forest is a forest, and does not need public highways ; mining is only an unpleasant accident, that an old custom has enabled the people to make a big nuisance, in spite of forest conservancy. Last Session a Com- mittee sat upon the subject, and it has recommended that some- thing should be done ; but it will probably be some time yet before every miner can buy his plot of ground near a mine, and build his house within comfortable distance of his work ; for many of the oaks now growing will not be ripe for the axe these hundred years, and by that time most of the mines may be worked out, so that there would be no need of a population near them at all. Why, therefore, it is asked, should the next two or three genera- tions object to bear the evil, as their fathers have done ? A green forest is better than a desolate wilderness, and miners only work eight hours a day.
This, at all events, is how the Forest is preserved at present. Mining has forced itself in where no room was made for it, and old customs have as yet been too strong for modern necessities. Possibly they will continue to be so, and if good roads were made —a thing that could be done without endangering the trees, one would fancy—or more land sold round the outskirts, where the people have already appropriated so much, it is possible that the miners might be content to keep their forest. A railway or a tramway going lengthways through it should not be an impossi- bility, and the lot of the miner would then be no harder than, if so hard as that of the London artisan. Indeed, the Severn and Wye Railway, with its newly-opened Cinderford branch, might run workmen's trains to great advantage, as it is. And it would be wiser, perhaps, to endeavour to make the best of things in the form which singular restrictions have given them, than to sweep the Forest away; for the coal will not last another hundred years, if the drain goes on as it has done, and the youngest oaks will take longer than that time to mature.
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