
The Forest of Dean: An Historical and Descriptive Account
Royal Administration, Mining Rights, Timber Economy, and Woodland Traditions in GloucestershireBy H. G. NichollsLength10h 3m
About this audiobook
H. G. Nicholls's *The Forest of Dean: An Historical and Descriptive Account* is a learned regional study of one of England's most distinctive wooded landscapes. Combining documentary history, topographical description, antiquarian observation, and social commentary, Nicholls traces the Forest's administration, customs, royal privileges, mineral wealth, timber resources, settlements, and distinctive communities. His account is especially valuable for showing how forests were not merely natural spaces but legally constituted environments shaped by the Crown, local inhabitants, mining, and changing patterns of land use. Written in the vigorous, information-rich prose characteristic of nineteenth-century topographical literature, the book stands between traditional antiquarian chronicle and the emerging modern regional history, preserving both institutional detail and a vivid sense of place. Nicholls writes as an informed interpreter of the Forest's past, attentive to the relationships among landscape, law, economy, and community. His interest reflects the Victorian period's growing enthusiasm for local history and its concern with the management of woodland, mineral extraction, and customary rights. By assembling archival traditions, descriptive observation, and accounts of local industry, he seeks not simply to celebrate the Forest but to explain the historical forces that made it distinctive. The result is a work shaped by antiquarian research yet responsive to contemporary debates about conservation, ownership, and rural development. This book is recommended to readers of British local history, environmental history, industrial archaeology, and landscape studies. It will particularly reward those interested in the interaction of customary communities with state authority and natural resources. Though written in an earlier scholarly idiom, Nicholls's detailed synthesis remains an essential guide to the Forest of Dean's historical character and a compelling record of Victorian historical understanding.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★ 4.4 (10)
Includes Amazon
GenreHistory
Length10 hrs 3 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateNov 25, 2023
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Social England under the Regency (Annotated)
2PREFACE.
3CHAPTER I. a.d. 1307–1612.
4CHAPTER II. a.d. 1612–1663.
5CHAPTER III. A. D. 1663–1692.
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6CHAPTER IV. a.d. 1692–1758.
7CHAPTER V. a.d. 1758–1800.
8CHAPTER VI. a.d. 1800–1831.
9CHAPTER VII. a.d. 1831–1841.
10CHAPTER VIII. a.d. 1841–1858.
11CHAPTER IX. THE ORIGINAL OCCUPIERS OF THE FOREST.
12CHAPTER X.
13CHAPTER XI.
14CHAPTER XII.
15THE TIMBER.
16CHAPTER XIV.
17CHAPTER XV.
18CHAPTER XVI.
19No. I. Papers preserved in the Lansdowne Collection at the British Museum.
20No. II. One of the Dean Forest Claims, put in at the Justice Seat, held in Gloucester Castle, 10 Chas. I.
21TABLE I.—FORMED BY MR. MACHEN.
22TABLE 2.—FORMED BY MR. MACHEN.
23TABLE 3.—FORMED BY MR. MACHEN.
24TABLE 4.—FORMED BY MR. MACHEN.
25TABLE 5.—FORMED BY MR. MACHEN.
26No. IV. Mr. Wyrrall’s Survey of the Forest of Dean Iron Works in 1635.
27No. V. Dr. Parson’s description of the mode of making Iron.
28No. VI. Being Minutes, &c., of the Court of Mine Law.