Bixslade, occasionally written Bix Slade, is a short, steep-sided, valley in the

Forest of Dean The Forest of Dean is a geographical, historical and cultural region in the western part of the county of Gloucestershire, England. It forms a roughly triangular plateau bounded by the River Wye to the west and northwest, Herefordshire to the n ...

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

. It begins on high ground at Bixhead, near Broadwell, and descends sharply to meet the Cannop Valley at Stonyhill Green. Bixslade has been quarried or mined continuously for over 500 years and has been described as ''"one of the country's finest areas of extractive industrial heritage"''. Many abandoned workings are still evident in the valley and are now home to a variety of wildlife, lichens, mosses and other plant life. Three quarries and a Freemine also continue to operate, largely hidden by the picturesque woodland.

Geology

The

sits on a basin plateau, formed of a fractured

asymmetrical Asymmetry is the absence of, or a violation of, symmetry (the property of an object being invariant to a transformation, such as reflection). Symmetry is an important property of both physical and abstract systems and it may be displayed in pre ...

syncline In structural geology, a syncline is a fold with younger layers closer to the center of the structure, whereas an anticline is the inverse of a syncline. A synclinorium (plural synclinoriums or synclinoria) is a large syncline with superimpose ...

composed of Upper

Palaeozoic The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838 by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and '' ...

rocks from the

Silurian The Silurian ( ) is a geologic period and system spanning 24.6 million years from the end of the Ordovician Period, at million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Devonian Period, Mya. The Silurian is the shortest period of the Paleozo ...

Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the Silurian, million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Carboniferous, Mya. It is named after Devon, England, whe ...

and

Carboniferous The Carboniferous ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Permian Period, million years ago. The name ''Carbonifero ...

periods. The rocks of the Bixslade valley consist of massive

Pennant Sandstone The Pennant Measures is the traditional name for a sequence of sedimentary rocks of the South Wales Coalfield. They were also referred to as the Upper Coal Measures and assigned to the Westphalian 'C' and Westphalian 'D' stages of the Carbonifero ...

, interbedded with

shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especial ...

and

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

seams.

Iron-ore Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the f ...

is present in the sandstone along the northern side of the valley, giving it a distinctive pink colour (see photograph). This is unusual for the Forest of Dean, where iron-ore is normally found in

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

. Two coal seams can be accessed from Bixslade; the'' 'Yorkley Seam' ''and the'' 'Coleford High Delph'.'' Both ascend from the foot of the valley, rising with the valley floor. The Yorkley seam outcrops roughly one third of the way up, while the underlying Coleford High Delph continues towards Coleford without outcrop.

Nature

A wide range of natural habitats exist in the valley, including

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

and

coniferous Conifers are a group of cone-bearing seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a single extant class, Pinopsida. All extant ...

woodland, open glades and wet areas. Human activity has also created numerous sites which have since been reclaimed by nature. Underground workings provide a habitat for greater and lesser horseshoe bats, whilst disused quarries are especially suited to

reptile Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, squamates (lizards and snakes) and rhynchocephalians ( ...

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species in a mutualistic relationship.mosses Mosses are small, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic division Bryophyta (, ) ''sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryophytes, which comprise liverworts, mosses, and horn ...

liverwort The Marchantiophyta () are a division of non-vascular land plants commonly referred to as hepatics or liverworts. Like mosses and hornworts, they have a gametophyte-dominant life cycle, in which cells of the plant carry only a single set of g ...

s and

fern A fern (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta ) is a member of a group of vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. The polypodiophytes include all living pteridophytes except t ...

s.The Industrial Heritage of Bixhead & Bixslade in the Forest of Dean. Page 19
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Spion Kop Quarry Spion Kop Quarry () is a nature reserve in Gloucestershire in the Forest of Dean. Kelham, A, Sanderson, J, Doe, J, Edgeley-Smith, M, et al., 1979, 1990, 2002 editions, 'Nature Reserves of the Gloucestershire Trust for Nature Conservation/Glouce ...

(disused) is now a nature reserve managed by the

Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust The Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust is the Gloucestershire local partner in a conservation network of 46 Wildlife Trusts. The Wildlife Trusts are local charities with the specific aim of protecting the United Kingdom's natural heritage. The Gl ...

, and is open to the public.

Bicslade Tramroad

In 1812, the ''Severn and Wye Railway and Canal Company'' added a

branch line A branch line is a phrase used in railway terminology to denote a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line. Industrial spur An industri ...

to the

Severn and Wye Railway The Severn and Wye Railway began as an early tramroad network established in the Forest of Dean to facilitate the carriage of minerals to watercourses for onward conveyance. It was based on Lydney, where a small harbour was constructed, and open ...

(actually a horse-drawn

tramroad A plateway is an early kind of railway, tramway or wagonway, where the rails are made from cast iron. They were mainly used for about 50 years up to 1830, though some continued later. Plateways consisted of "L"-shaped rails, where the flange o ...

) to serve the collieries and quarries in the lower part of the Bixslade valley.Ron Huxley, ''The rise and fall of the Severn Bridge Railway'', 1984, It was named the ''Bicslade'' Tramroad, although the reason for the different spelling is not known. It was extended over time to run the full length of the valley, with the last stretch to Bixhead Quarry opening in 1855. The branch closed in 1946, but large numbers of stone sleepers remain.

Exploitation of Bixslade

Historic

Some of the smaller quarries are accessible, but most of the disused workings in the valley are fenced and may only be viewed from a distance. In all cases, however, extreme care must be taken when visiting sites. The earliest surviving documents record quarrying activity at Bixhead, the highest point of Bixslade, from the 15th century onwards, although extraction is likely to have taken place long before this date. Two large disused quarries exist today at Bixhead (neither are open to the public). Other disused quarries also exist, on both sides, further down the valley; the largest being Spion Kop. Several disused

levels Level or levels may refer to: Engineering *Level (instrument), a device used to measure true horizontal or relative heights *Spirit level, an instrument designed to indicate whether a surface is horizontal or vertical *Canal pound or level *Regr ...

and shafts can also be seen in the valley, although none can be accessed. The Yorkley seam outcrops in the lower half of the valley and was worked using relatively short drifts or shallow pits, but the thicker, and more important, Coleford High Delph seam could only be reached via shafts or longer levels, also called ''drifts''.The Bicslade Tramroad Trail (leaflet) In the lower part of the valley is a monument, marking the site of Union Pit. It commemorates four miners who were killed, and three others who were trapped for five days, by flooding in 1902.

Current

Three quarries; Monument Quarry, Mine Train Quarry and Bixhead Quarry still operate at Bixslade, producing Pennant Sandstone. No public access exists to any of the working sites at Bixslade. Larger blocks from Bixhead and Mine Train are transported by road to be processed in a nearby stoneworks at

Cannop Ponds Cannop Ponds () are two large ponds, just north of Parkend in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, England. The ponds, and surrounding area, are a popular tourist destination. An area of reeds above the top pond, known as 'Cannop Bridge Marsh ...

, whilst Monument Quarry mostly produces walling stone. One working freemine also remains in the valley; Monument Colliery, formerly Hayner's Bailey. It works the Yorkley Seam via 200yd inclined drift.

References

{{Reflist, 2

External links

Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust

Photographic slideshow of Bixslade
beginning at

. Forest of Dean Rail transport in Gloucestershire