Walking Through Dean History Walk Eleven Walk 11 7½ or 5 miles (12 or 8 km) Hope Mansell, Lea Bailey, and Wigpool The white house with its distinctive tower distance, and cross a footbridge and stile. is Euroclydon (1). Continue to the far end Pass to the left of a house (Bailey Brook of the field, where there is a gap and a stile. Cottage) onto a lane and follow this uphill A lovely secluded valley, a gold mine, Wigpool iron mine (including a WW2 Follow the narrow path beyond down to to a junction. Turn right here to follow a ‘cinema’), and extensive views. A hilly walk on field paths, woodland tracks, a tarmac road. Turn left and then right in gravel track just on the edge of a conifer and lanes; can be muddy; the section around Wigpool Common requires front of the first house (‘Greystones’). The plantation (Lea Bailey Inclosure), keeping careful navigation; 9 stiles. path heads uphill, initially between stone left past a driveway. Bear right at a junction walls, to a gate. Keeping the hedge on to go behind two houses (Newtown!), and START at one of the parking areas on either side of the unclassified road your left, continue uphill through another keep left at another to go up a small valley between Drybrook and Mitcheldean, on the sharp bend a little under a gate. Beyond this there is a good view to to a junction of several tracks. Take the mile from Drybrook and just over half a mile from Mitcheldean (the top of the left of Drybrook and Ruardean Hill, one that goes half right past a barrier to a Stenders Hill): GR SO 656180. Refreshments: none on walk; pubs and shops in with Cinderford beyond (2). Just below tarmac road (about 100 yds away). Mitcheldean and Drybrook. Bus: 24 (Gloucester–Joy’s Green) to The Stenders. the path, also on the left, is Drybrook Cross this and take the road opposite Quarry (3). Still keeping the hedge (and towards Lea and Mitcheldean. After about quarry) on your left, continue over two 100 yds there is a metal barrier on the stiles and through two hedge gaps. There right. Go past this towards a metal hut are excellent views of the Herefordshire visible a short distance beyond. This is Hills and Black Mountains (4) to the right the site of Lea Bailey Gold Mine (7)! The (north and west) along this stretch. mine entrance is to the left, behind the Climb the next stile, near a house, shed. After looking around here, retrace then turn right down an enclosed grassy your steps to the road, turn left, left again track. Where this bends right, keep ahead at the junction, and cross the bridge over through a gate into a field. Follow the the trackbed of the former Mitcheldean left-hand field edge (ignoring a stile over Road & Forest of Dean Junction Railway the fence) downhill to climb a stile near (8). The track on the right just before the a converted barn. Keep ahead down to a bridge is where the short cut comes in. Just tarmac road and turn left. After 300 yds over the bridge turn left past a barrier a byway sign near ‘Cuckoo Patch’ points onto a dirt track. Fork right after 100 yds sharp right along a grassy track, a possible onto a path, which climbs more steeply short cut. This initially follows the edge of through woodland to the top of the hill, woodland, continues past a farm, enters where you turn left onto a grass track. some woods, and finally emerges onto a Follow this track as it bends right and road by an old railway bridge. Turn right then left past some cottages, but where it over this to continue the walk. Otherwise next turns right, keep ahead along a grass stay on the road, with good views of the path between fences. There are chicken lovely secluded Hope Mansell valley on the houses on the right and more views of the right (5). Keep ahead at a junction (signed Herefordshire hills and Welsh mountains Hope Mansell) and head steadily downhill, to the left. The path bends right after the past another junction on the right and the chicken farm onto a dirt road, where you stone and timber-framed Cowles House go right. Turn left at the next T-junction (c. 1600) on the left, to Hope Mansell and follow this dirt road as it swings right Church (6). Just past the church, opposite and then left. At this point, take the grassy Moat Farm and Mill House, turn right up (and commonly muddy) track which forks TAKE THE WIDE DIRT TRACK beyond left onto a footpath, then fork right after a lane (signed to village hall). At the top of right of the driveway to a house. The next the barrier on your left as you face towards 20 yds and continue until you emerge from this lane climb the steps and stile directly section can be a bit tricky, so please follow Mitcheldean (i.e., on the inside of the bend the woods. The path bears left and passes ahead and continue ahead across the field the directions carefully; see detailed map. in the main road). Keep ahead past a track to the right of a childrens’ play area. Turn to a stile. Keeping in the same direction, Continue for about 100 yds, passing junction on the right and a mast on the right, passing a bungalow on your left, cross go downhill to pass through a hedge gap, a driveway on the left, and then bear left. About 40 yds after the mast you turn a tarmac lane, and climb the stile ahead. follow a stream on your left for a short right at a fork. Approximately 250 yds 104 105 Walking Through Dean History Walk Eleven further on, at the top of a rise, you come along this is a wire-fenced area about 20 Drybrook and Cinderford (2) to a triangular junction, marked by a yards to the left. This large rock-sided hole The view from here takes in Drybrook in the valley, Ruardean Hill to its right, Harrow Hill to prominent yew tree in its centre. A few is the ‘Yankee Cinema’ (9). About 100 yds the left, and Cinderford beyond. Drybrook is a typical Forest village, workaday rather than yards beyond the yew, on the far side of further on you come to a junction where picturesque, and based to a large extent on coal mining and stone quarrying. It only really began the crossing track in a depression, is a you turn left along a somewhat wider path. to expand in the late 18th century with the expansion of the extractive industries in the area. As gated entrance (Fox Hole) to Wigpool Iron The waste heaps on the right here are from the community developed, a range of religious, musical (including a brass band), sporting, and Mine. Turn right at this junction. After Wigpool No. 2 Pit (10). The path widens other activities became established. The largest collieries were situated south of the village and about 120 yds, and about 10 yds before a into a track and soon leads out past a barrier all worked the Coleford High Delf Seam: Pluckpenny, Newbridge Engine, Speedwell Newbridge, fork where the more obvious path bends onto a tarmac road. Cross this and follow and Harrow Hill. However, by the end of the 19th century most of these had either closed or left, is a footpath (easily missed) on the the road directly ahead, first past Wig Pool were in decline and only Harrow Hill, which had taken over several other collieries, survived right where the route continues. However, (11) and then the former Wigpool No. 1 Pit until about 1927. Many workers therefore had to travel further afield to find employment. The there are two more points of interest which engine house (now a residence, 12), both coming of the railway in 1907 helped to alleviate this problem, but the depression of the 1930s you can look at first. To see these continue on the right. Just beyond this, where the hit hard. Light industries provided work after World War 2, and improving transport enabled to the fork, bear left and, after a few yards, road bends right, fork slightly left onto the people to commute to places such as Gloucester. Today the village has a range of facilities, turn sharp left along an indistinct path for first of two tracks with barriers. This grass including the Hearts of Oak pub. South of Drybrook is the area known as Harrow Hill (or a short distance to another grid-covered track (often muddy) generally follows the Harry Hill), where the first Anglican church (Holy Trinity) within the boundary of the Forest mine entrance, now used by cavers. This is line of the Wigpool Tramroad (13). Where of Dean was built in 1817. A Congregational Chapel, later the United Reformed Church, was Steam Hole, so named because moisture in the track reaches the far end of the fenced built in 1858 and enlarged in 1872. The village of Ruardean Hill overlooks Drybrook from the warmer air rising from the mine on a cold water works enclosure on the left, bear southwest. The summit of the hill is the highest point in Dean (951 ft, 290 m). There are two day will sometimes condense. Return to the left off the more obvious track, and then pubs, the Nelson Arms and the Rose in Hand, as well as a village shop.