One half of the Forest population is understood to be employed at the coal-works, a fourth part at those of iron, whose red dresses make them easily known, and the remaining portion are employed in the quarries and woods, &c.
Horses of a bad breed, donkeys, mules, cattle, sheep, pigs, and geese abound, owing to the free pasture afforded by the open Forest, the three former having been used for many generations in carrying iron-mine, coal, charcoal, &c. Farming operations are necessarily very limited. Cider obtained from the styre apple used to be a common beverage; but that fruit has long been extinct, and malt-liquor is now mostly preferred. Gardening is little attended to, the colliers generally feeling indisposed to further exertion after returning from the pit. In few instances only are bees kept. Formerly much of the wearing apparel was made from home-spun wool, woven or knitted in the neighbourhood; but this is not now the practice.
The turf-covered cabin, resting on four dry walls, without windows, and pierced only by a low door, with
a very rude fireplace and chimney in “the pine end,” and partially paved with rough stones, once the habitation of the Forest “cabiner,” is now almost entirely superseded by two-floored cottages, often containing not less than four apartments. In bygone days a few neighbours, taking advantage of a moonlight night, accomplished the erection of a cabin ere the morning dawned, in which case it was supposed that the keepers had no power to pull it down. To show the eagerness with which poor families sought to establish themselves in the Forest, it may be mentioned that they took possession of the ancient mine-caves, walling up the back and front, leaving a vent for the smoke in the former, and in the latter a gap as an entrance.
Their pastimes used to be dancing and foot-ball, to the great delight of people of all ages: indeed there are several spots yet called from the above circumstance “the dancing green.” Wakes were likewise very popular, and also the game of fives, so that at Ruerdean one side of the church tower was whitewashed for the purpose, and resorted to even on Sundays. Some of the provincialisms of the district occur in the following words—“yat” (gate), “tump” (hillock), “teart” (sharp), “spract” (lively), “twich” (touch), “near a anoust” (near the same), “anunt” (opposite).
Peculiarities also occur in the selection of Christian names, including these—Benedicta, Abia, Winifred, Kezia, Barzillai, Sibylla, Eve, Saba, Sabina, Beata, Tryphena, Belinda, Myra, Terzah, Nimrod, River, Milson, Miles, &c. [152]
On account of the dense woods with which the Forest was anciently covered, added to the fact that except at Newland, and perhaps at Park End, no churches were
built within it, we may conclude that at an early period its population was small, the persons engaged in the iron and coal works then living, as many of the working people do now, in the adjoining parishes. Our earliest information as to the number of inhabitants residing within its present limits relates to the time of the Commonwealth, when “400 cabins of beggarly people living upon the waste, and destroying the wood and timber, were thrown down.” In 1712 Sir R. Atkins states that “there had been many cottages in it, but that they had been lately pulled down, leaving only the six keepers’ houses.” He gives 6,090 as the total population of the outlying parishes, thus distributed:—
| Mitcheldean | 600 |
| Little Dean | 620 |
| Newnham | 400 |
| Blakeney | 250 |
| Lydney | 700 |
| Newland | 800 |
| Clearwell | 600 |
| Coleford | 600 |
| Bream | 300 |
| Le Bailey | 200 |
| Staunton | 220 |
| Ruerdean | 500 |
| Bicknor | 300 |
| ----- | |
| Total | 6,090 |
At the close of the century, the Forest, as now bounded, comprised 589 houses, which in 1803 had increased to 696, the number of free miners being then 662. Since that time the inhabitants of the Forest have gone on increasing as follows:—