Year 8 and the Forest of Dean.

Pupils in the Common Entrance groups are studying different aspects of the Industrial Revolution at the moment and to support their learning we went to Dean Heritage museum and Hopewell Colliery on Saturday morning. Perhaps not your first thought of an industrial site, but 200 years ago this was a hive of industry. Coalmines, iron works and industry were so dominant that there were few trees! Most had been “cooked” to make charcoal, which in turn was used to smelt iron, thus leaving it a forest without any trees!
Dean Heritage museum helps the pupils understand the background to the industrial development. With Mr Baker’s help, we explained iron smelting and the development of steam engines. Unlike many museums, here we were allowed to handle exhibits and Lucy demonstrated how the women miners would have pulled the coal out of the mines using a corve. On site is a “Forrester’s” cottage. This was very effective in demonstrating the social changes that people have experienced. There were 15 in our group; we filled the back room (though there was still space for Caitlin to have a bath in front of the fire – cleanest in first, with Dad to finish); the scullery showed why washing took the whole day; we examined the weight of the saucepans (and they were empty); we worked out how to test if the iron was hot. Upstairs the rooms at first glance looked conventional – then they spotted the “goes-under” (the toilet pot that goes under the bed which one of the children would have to empty the next morning); the washstand; the lack of space. A really effective experience. Outside there were the ferrets, the Gloucester Old Spot pigs and the chickens, and their equipment for Cider making. These people had to be as self sufficient as possible. We returned to the industrial aspects by building a charcoal stack, examining a drift mine and Mr Baker demonstrated how to use pole lathes and draw knives on original equipment. We finished in the schoolroom, wearing mobcaps or bonnets, before a naughty girl just had to be punished!
The other half group went to Hopewell Colliery – here Robin the owner (who still mines for coal daily – aged 75!) and a second guide took the groups down the drift mine. It is called a drift mine, but the steepness of the slope to get down to the coal is very surprising. This is no demonstration mine – this was still being worked until recently, and a next-door seam is still active. One of the first stopping points show the height of the seam in which miners worked – less than 24 inches (or 60cm in today’s terms) – with workers crouching or laying on their side whilst they hack at the coal. The group did not really believe this when it was explained in the classroom – here it is in real life. The mines within the forest are not naturally full of gas, though they can be wet, as the group discovered later when they had to cross a stream and found horseshoes cast by the original pit ponies.
Both groups seemed to thoroughly enjoy their mornings – we repeat the trip on May 8th but swap locations, so hopefully they continue to gain from these experiences.

Click here to see the photos