4.500 years of mining history in an amazing cave system. Clearwell Caves are a working mining museum, where you see caverns that were worked by iron miners over many centuries. Displays throughout the caverns tell the miners' story from the Stone Age up to the present day. Iron ore from the Caves has made tools, weapons and machinery over the centuries, but iron ore also occurs as ochre pigment used over the centuries to make artists' paints. Jonathan still mines the red, yellow, purple and brown ochre found here. The iron mines are an important part of the long Forest of Dean story.
