Three Quarries in or near the Parish of Ruardean (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Saturday, January 30, 2016, 03:07 (3221 days ago) @ dwdavis

Hi Donald,
I'm not a quarrying expert but I'll try. I see you're in Canada, but suspect you know the area to some extent, so apologies if I'm over-stating the "obvious" when trying to describe the various locations.

1. Hawkwell.
The only Hawkwell I know is between Steam Mills (north of Cinderford), and Ruardean Hill, just south of the main A4136 road from Nailbridge to Brierley. If you Google it you'll find hits such as this one, the modern map can switch to satellite image which will hopefully help you.
http://www.zoopla.co.uk/property/north-lodge/hawkwell-green/cinderford/gl14-3jj/9692078

I think the above site's "Z" icon is actually marking the Hawkwell Brickworks which is approx where the big Northern United Colliery was, which itself was preceded by the Hawkwell mine. Despite my being a Cinderford man I'm no expert on exact locations of the old mines etc in the Steam Mills/Brierley area, only ever visited the area a few times as a youth to buy bricks with my father, so I know the brickworks was there in the late 1970s. I don't know if's prescence indicates there was/is quarrying on the site, I guess it might do ?. Brickmaking needs clay, near my West London home an extra branch of the Grand Union canal was built to serve the so-called brick"fields" near Langley/Slough where many millions of bricks were made at the clay pits to serve the growth of Victorian London.

This map shows the coal mines(black spots) & iron mines(brown spots) of the FoD in 1894, many years before they were reduced to just the Big Four deep mines of which Northern United was one.
http://lightmoor.co.uk/forestcoal/Overviewmap.html
Click on the centre-right to enlarge the East Dean section, Hawkwell mine is towards the top, just south of the dotted road.

However, despite the above, my initial thought was that quarries in the Dean usually infer exposed hillsides or cliffs, such as on Wilderness/Plump Hill twixt Nailbridge/Drybrook & Mitcheldean, rather than flat low-lying areas such as this Hawkwell area. An example is the working Hanson quarry above the Hawthorns part of Drybrook, which can easily be found by tracking "up" the aerial photo on the link above.

Also see http://aboutglos.co.uk/forest-of-dean-walk-plump-hill-fairplay-pond-drybrook/30-view-to...

And this wrt Scowles, ancient iron workings damaged by more recent quarrying
http://way-mark.co.uk/foresthaven/scowles/startup.htm#

The best & normally first port of call for an enquiry such as this is the superb British History site, "the" definitive official history of the area, it confirms that Hawkwell is near Steam Mills, saying;

"Further north at Hawkwell new tinplate works were started in 1879 by Jacob Chivers, formerly a tinplate manufacturer at Kidwelly (Carmarthenshire.). The Hawkwell works, which on Chivers's death in 1883 passed to his brotherin-law A. C. Bright, were shut down in 1895 and were converted as brickworks in 1905.

Brickmaking had become a Forest industry by the early 19th century and expanded considerably after 1838, when the digging of clay and sand was permitted under licence from the Commissioners of Woods. Brickyards were opened in various places, including Whitecroft, Ellwood, Parkend, and Staple Edge. They usually manufactured fire bricks as well as ordinary bricks and several were attached to local ironworks. David Mushet, who had brickworks next to his ironworks at Dark Hill in 1832, supplied bricks to South Wales in 1843. Brickworks established by the Coleford-Parkend road at Fetter Hill by 1858 also produced pottery. By the late 1870s, when several brickyards were in production at Steam Mills and Nailbridge, the industry made extensive use of shale from colliery spoil tips. The Brain family used clay from Trafalgar colliery at brickworks at Steam Mills; later the Princess Royal Colliery Co. near Whitecroft manufacured bricks and in 1923 the Lydney & Crumpmeadow Collieries Co. opened brickworks at Broadmoor. Brickworks occupying abandoned steelworks on Gorsty knoll in 1928 were closed in 1937. Brickmaking continued into the later 20th century, particularly in the Cinderford area where the Hawkwell and Broadmoor yards employed 62 people in 1959."
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/glos/vol5/pp326-354
(My niece's partner works at a Cinderford yard making hand-made bricks, I think the Hawkwell yard, I really should quiz him on it!)

For more Brickmaking see http://www.forest-of-dean.net/fodmembers/index.php?id=22488

The excellent Wild Swan book "The Forest of Dean Branch Vol 2", by Ian Pope of Lightmoor site fame, carries many old photos & history of the Hawkwell and adjoining areas, all generally flat greens. It shows that Northern United pit is clearly visible 1/4 mile or so south & below the Nailbridge-Brierley Road. It also contains extracts of old Ordnance Survey maps which show several "clay pits" around the area, such as at the old Nelson Brickworks at Nelson Green towards Brierley. It states how altho' most pits were sunk looking for coal, some people realised the clay was worth extracting hence the brickyards were set-up. The book doesn't give precise locations for the area's many mines and works, but this list gives exact map reference 6430 1590 for Hawkwell Colliery, clearly nearby Northern at 6360 1560.
http://www.copsewood.org/mining/books/oldham/fod_02.htm
(I refer to Northern as this was the last mine in the area, it's site is marked with a Memorial so is a good reference point now. However it's extensive workings & subsequent clearing on closing may have destroyed any evidence of earlier workings including quarrying. The whole area is due for redeveloping, this newspaper article from 2013 gives an indicator as to the ongoing plans. If you read the interesting comments below the article, some words of wisdom about the old mines are written by "vuristerodean"; I wonder if this is the same miner who briefly posted on this forum as "vurister" few years back, sadly no longer..)
http://www.gloucestercitizen.co.uk/Cinderford-Northern-Quarter-regeneration-scheme/stor...

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