Forest of Dean and Severn coalfields

Abstract

These two small areas of Upper Carboniferous lie between the much larger South Wales and Bristol-Somerset coalfields (Figure 5.1). A third area is poorly exposed and is not dealt with further here (the Newent Coalfield — see Cleal, 1987 and Worssam et al., 1989, for brief accounts of this coalfield). The Severn Coalfield has never been worked commercially, but the Forest of Dean was, until about 20 years ago, still commercially active. According to Bone and Himus (1936), annual output in the 1920s and 1930s varied from 1 to 1.5 million tons. There is still some very small-scale extraction in parts of the forest, purely for local consumption, done by local residents known as Free Miners who, through historical precedence, are exempt from the government’s monopoly on the exploitation of coal in Britain.