Forest of Dean

The Dean was a royal hunting forest and an iron and coal district, and it kept legal customs that survive nowhere else in Britain: a freeminer, born in the Hundred of St Briavels, having worked a year and a day in a mine, may still claim a gale to work coal or iron, and sheep graze free on the roads and through the villages under commoners' rights, which is why cattle grids sit at the forest edges. Hopewell and Clearwell Caves are worked iron and ochre mines open to visitors, and Puzzlewood is a moss-covered scowle landscape of collapsed ancient iron workings that has been used for filming since the 1980s. A sculpture trail from Beechenhurst has run since 1986, and the forest holds the highest density of wild boar in England, reintroduced accidentally by escapes in the 1990s.

The landscape

• The free-roaming sheep - commoners' animals grazing roads and villages.
• Puzzlewood - scowles and moss over collapsed ancient iron workings.
• The working mines - Clearwell and Hopewell, iron and ochre, open underground.
• The sculpture trail - installations in the woods since 1986.

When to go

April to October for walking and cycling; autumn colour through the beech is the strongest. Wild boar are most active at dawn and dusk and are best watched from a distance.

Before you go

Wild boar are large, present in numbers and occasionally aggressive around sows with young; dogs should be kept close. The sheep on the roads mean slow driving and dented cars. The forest is spread out and needs a car to see properly.

Nearby

Symonds Yat and the Wye Valley are north; Tintern and Chepstow lie south.

Key facts