Today, I went along down to the Dean Heritage Museum at Soudley in the Forest of Dean to photograph the volunteers building a charcoal stack. The DHM is a community based museum which tells the history of the Forest of Dean, and is run as a charity. Is it worth coming for a day out? I took my daughter, Lucy, and her friend, and had to drag them back to the car when it was time to leave – so that is probably a very good recommendation. They did some “cart” painting, drew with charcoals and rescued a fish that had managed to get stuck on a rock by the stream.
At May half term and August Bank holiday, volunteers build a charcoal stack, which once alight, has to be manned 24 hours a day to ensure that the correct amount of air enters the stack. Falling asleep on the job can lead to the stack catching fire and the charcoal being ruined! In between checking the burn, Volunteers catch forty winks in the charcoal burner’s hut that has been erected nearby, and cook on the fire. On Tuesday, the stack will be broken open. It is easy to detect someone who has been manning the stack because they smell of kippers and look a little wild from lack of sleep.
The main purpose of coming today was because the Wye Valley & Forest of Dean Tourism Association is preparing a short video to give a taster of the heritage of the area, and the crew from Clikingo were on site to film the charcoal burn.
Click here to see the charcoal stack being erected.
Charcoal Stack at the Dean Heritage Museum
