HI
I`m putting together a scrapbook of my two families (ALLAWAY and POWELL) who both came from the forest and both moved to Newbridge(Mon) in the early 1900`sI was wondering if conditions that existed when the collieries in the FOD were at full power would have polluted the atmosphere as much as it did in Mon?(Even the birds looked a different colour when I spent a holiday in Bucks.,especially the sparrows!)I suppose that Newbridge being in a long narrow valley(the Ebbw)would be more affected by the coaldust.
I`d be intersted in any info. about this
Sylvia

Hello Sylvia,

I'm not an expert and what I write may get shot down in short order. I think pollution was caused by the burning of coal, industrial and domestic, not the mining thereof. Obviously, slag heaps were pollution, but did'nt blacken buildings.

The Forest villages and Cinderford look pretty clean to me, despite being there because of coal and iron (and stone quarrying) . Gwent/Monmouthshire had both and I remember the Newport area in the 1950's when I was a child. There was some blackening of the red brick houses, but not excessive and nothing like London. I remember London in the early 60's and it was black from the domestic and hundreds/thousands of small industrial enterprises burning coal for a couple of centuries. I remember the clean up process starting about 1963 when buildings were cleaned by sand blasting or high pressure water hoses.

My family was in Soudley in the 19th Century and the Soudley Valley contained both coal and iron mines. Just below Soudley was an iron works with tall chimneys. Built about 1830 and demolished about 1890 (It never earnt much of a profit), most impressive looking place (Krupp of Essen would have been proud to own it)(there's a pic. of it in The Industrial History of Dean by Cyril Hart) Pic. about 1880 despite the caption giving the impression of 1830. The Soudley Valley houses all look clean.

Roger

Hi
Thank you Roger for your info and comments.
Sylvia

My great-great uncle could remember seeing salmon leaping in the River Wye so there couldn't have been a very big problem with pollution in the rivers at least. He also had a wide knowledge of wild life and wild flowers, again this suggests that it wasn't clogged with pollution.
The industry in the forest was small scale, no big factories or pit heads. The mines look rather like gold mines in the wild west of the USA as they can be walked into at ground level, they are not deep ones with deep shafts and windlasses like the ones in South Wales were. The iron smelting had been there for years, again small scale and I think there was also a small scale charcoal industry too.

Hi
Many thanks for your reply. It was just the sort of info. I was looking for
best wishes
Sylvia

they are not deep ones with deep shafts and windlasses like the ones in South Wales were

Whilst a number of the Gales were mined as small simple operations, some mines were large / deep -- i.e. Northern United, Princess Royal, and quite a few had significant Headframes - i.e. Lightmoor, Trafalgar etc

Ian Pope's
http://www.lightmoor.co.uk/forestcoal/Coalopen.html

may help

--
Ἀριστοτέλης A Gloster & Hereford Boy in the Forest of Dean ><((((*>

I just wrote a long screed with GRO references to maps and documents in Gloucester County Records supporting Slowhands Post, also personal evidence from my own family history. Seems to have been 'timeouted', not for the first time. I'm afraid I can't dredge through all of it again only to be 'timeouted' again.

Roger

Roger

Thats a shame - a bit of advice to avoid the potential for a "time out " i.e. the phone goes, you stop for a coffee :-) - create/ edit your note using "Notepad" or similar utility and then 'cut and paste' the content into the message here.

--
Ἀριστοτέλης A Gloster & Hereford Boy in the Forest of Dean ><((((*>

Thanks, Slowhands.

Roger

Roger

I know how frustrating these kind of things are but I'm sure if you can find the time later to re-type your message many people will find it interesting and will be grateful of your efforts.