Around the turn of the last century some bright spark noticed that the geology of Lea Bailey resembled the gold-bearing rocks of South Africa, where fortunes were being won. In 1906 he persuaded a group of venturers to invest in his project and 300ft into the hillside they did indeed strike gold... 6 grains (about 0.014 ounces) per ton of rock removed. By any standard, that is a very small amount indeed and the project was quickly written off as an expensive failure. It may even have been an investment scam.Lea Bailey's hole in the hillside then remained dormant for 15 years, until the Wigpool Coal and Iron Syndicate arrived on site and drove the tunnel further on into the hillside, in search of iron ore. There turned out to be rather more of this than of gold, but still not enough to justify the expense. Six years later that venture, too, fizzled out.
So why, you may be wondering, is there a narrow-gauge railway on the site, 90 years after the mine was abandoned? The answer is that there have been a couple of attempts to turn the old mine into a tourist attraction, the latest by the Lea Bailey Light Railway Society.In the few years that I have known the site, not much seems to have happened, but the Society's website paints a different picture, with regular volunteer working parties, and open days planned for May and September.
On a site that has seen so many failures – even the railway was a flop – it would be easy to write off this Society's plans as yet another pipe dream, but that would surely be unfair. Indeed, I never cease to be amazed at the achievements of groups such as these that, through dogged determination and sheer hard work, restore moribund mills, mines, railway engines and whole railway lines to working order.
There remains one more forest oddity on Walk 11, from my book Exploring Historic Dean. "What could it be?" I hope I hear you ask!
What could it be?
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