House on or near the Plump, Mitcheldean (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Monday, April 23, 2012, 05:18 (4604 days ago) @ slowhands

Hi Amaska,
sorry for belatedly spotting your post. Slowhands is indeed correct, the arches you photographed are almost certainly old lime kilns, partly immerged in presumably spoil from the surrounding quarry after it fell into disrepair. I haven't visited the Point kilns myself but they appear very typical, limekilns were definitely worked alongside the "Wilderness" dolomite limestone quarry where the road passes around the Point. The photo at the bottom of the attached article shows some almost identical arches, in this case limekilns near Lydbrook/Bicknor to the west.
http://www.peterdean.co.uk/walks/walk.shtml?id=660

This excerpt gives a little more detail to the Point kilns
"Quarrying and mining continued near Mitcheldean from the 17th century and several townsmen found employment as stone cutters and masons or as coal miners in the Forest. Lime kilns were operating on the Wilderness estate in 1791 and a mason was granted a lease of a quarry at the Wilderness in 1818. Iron ore continued to be mined there and the nearby Westbury Brook mine ran beneath the old workings in the mid 19th century. Small sandstone quarries were being worked near the town by the late 18th century. Those north of the Gloucester road, which yielded red sandstone, were exploited on a large scale from 1882 and became known as the Wilderness quarries. Those quarries, at which brickworks were established in 1885, were purchased in 1900 by Forest of Dean Stone Firms Ltd. Soon after the First World War the works were closed with the loss of 150 jobs and since then the quarries have been worked only occasionally. Limestone quarrying at the Wilderness expanded after 1885 when cement works were built on Stenders hill. Quarries were opened on both sides of the road but the enterprise, which gave employment to up to 200 men, ended when the works closed just after the First World War."
From: 'Mitcheldean', A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 5: Bledisloe Hundred, St. Briavels Hundred, The Forest of Dean (1996), pp. 173-195.
URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=23259&strquery=lime

I recommend looking up the "New Regard" Journal of the FoD Local History society. By happy coincidence I'm just reading Issue 25 from late 2011 which is why I knew of these kilns, it has an article about an unusual accident at the quarry in 1872, four men sadly died due to unexpected noxious gases after a particularly large gunpowder explosion. By even happier coincidence the article includes a photo taken in 1927, so only a few yars before your mother arrived. This shows the view from the top of the quarry down across the Mitcheldean-Harrow Hill road and on to the houses below, with a just discernable "disused limekiln belonging to Aaron Symmonds", the 1872 quarry owner. The photo of course includes the superb panoramic views with large rolling fields in the distance.
http://79.170.40.163/forestofdeanhistory.org.uk/LHSnrprevious.html

I hope this helps a little, good luck with your search.