Hopewell Colliery Museum and Working Mine

Hopewell Colliery is a working coal mine on a small scale. The Forest of Dean, on the border of England and Wales, has seen iron mining since prehistoric times and coal mining for hundreds of years. A few local people have long-established rights to open their own private mine in the forest. The guides at Hopewell Colliery are all experienced free miners. They take visitors underground for a short tour through adits dug since the 1820s. Sections of the adits are in solid rock or made with stone arches or with timber supports. The guides demonstrate how to work coal in a seam 75-cm deep. Visitors leave by a different adit and return along the route of a former horse-worked railway through the forest. There is also a working shaft with a small headframe and winding engine. Visitors may see free miners bringing out a load of coal. A small museum shows a collection of tools, photographs and other objects.