I have found Ian Pope’s "Forest of Dean Coal Mining" website to be an outstanding reference (see http://www.lightmoor.co.uk/forestcoal/Coalintro.html ) For example, see the 1894 map of local coal and iron mines at http://www.lightmoor.co.uk/forestcoal/Overviewmap.html .

The Coalmining History Resource Center is also quite informative (see http://www.cmhrc.co.uk/site/home/ ).

--Matt Nash

Moderator, “The Nash Families of the Forest of Dean” family history forum on Yahoo! Groups
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nash_fod/

Near Ruspidge

Lightmoor, and Bridge pit ( at Cinderford Bridge)
&
Staple End and Quid Church towards Soudley

( whilst on the road down to Soudley Findall that eventually became Eastern United )

Stone/ Ore was extracted at Shaklemantle and Buckshaft

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

my best guess is that the Parkend / Whitecroft /Yorkley area is probably where they would head - so quite a choice there :-)

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

Seeing the replies to your question about mines in Ruspidge,I was surprised no one had mentioned Eastern United the last large working mine in this area.Eastern was situated in the lower part of Ruspidge and was in fact a deep level mine existing from 1906as a Freemine,taken over by Henry Crawshay in 1909 finally closing in 1959 as the Forest coalfield was closed down.The Morse family name was well known in the area and no doubt many of them worked in the mines.There are still quite a few Morses in the area.