These days miners can choose how
long they work for. The Forest of
Dean has an ancient tradition that
if you are born in the area and have
one year’s experience of mining, then
you can mine the caves anywhere
and anytime you like. It is called
freemining and women can mine too.
A cave pool, with pictures of cre
With all that heavy work, I bet people
couldn’t wait for lunch! The men and
boys would share a loaf of bread but
it had a tasty middle bit, like a Cornish
pasty. A hole was made into the bread
and the middle filled with cheese,
butter, ham and onion then the bread
was sandwiched back together.
atures that were alive millions
of years ago.
Caves oft en have water in them, and
Clearwell has water pools. The water was
so clean that miners used to drink from
them. Villagers also came to the mines
and filled up their buckets. Millions of
years ago, instead of the mine, there
used to be a sea instead! Lots of fossils
of fish have been found in the rocks.
SPARK
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