Dean Heritage Centre

The centre comprises the museum itself, a millpond and waterwheel, forester's cottage with garden and animals, art and craft exhibitions and workshops, and trails around the surrounding woodland.

In addition, there are picnic tables, barbecue hearths, an adventure playground, a gift shop selling local produce and the Heritage Kitchen, a restaurant providing home-made food.

They display a wide variety of artefacts from industries such as coal and iron mining, forestry, timber, stone working and clock making that have shaped the history, landscape and culture of the Forest.

Starting from the museum, a forestry trail can be followed through centuries-old oak and beech woods up to the summit of Bradley Hill, where a panoramic view of the valley can be seen; including the 1846 Zion Chapel and the old railway tunnel, excavated in 1894 and which runs beneath the hillside.

Like many Forest cottages of the time, it is a two-up, two-down, with, on the ground floor, a well-appointed sitting room with a harmonium, Victorian chaise-longue and a collection of period china, and a kitchen with an authentic cast-iron range.

The right to mine for coal is believed to have been first granted by Edward II, to any man born within the Forest of Dean's traditional boundaries, (known as the Hundred of St Briavels) and who has worked underground for a year and a day.