🏠 Indoor & outdoorBooking requiredSeasonal openingEducational
What’s there
- Café on site
- Free parking
- Picnic area
Large free car park on site.
Only facilities we’ve confirmed are listed — anything missing here we simply haven’t checked, rather than know to be absent.
Hopewell Colliery is a small working coal mine and museum on the edge of the Forest of Dean, run by a local freeminer. The main draw is a guided underground tour into part of an original working face, where a guide who has worked the forest's mines explains how the seams were cut and how the miners lived and worked. Children tend to be fascinated by the tight passages, the head-torch and lamp kit provided, and the idea of coal being brought up at the entrance. The site also has a surface museum of mining tools and equipment, a café and a gift shop, and picnic areas, so a visit can be stretched into a relaxed half-day. Tours suit older children and adults rather than very young ones, and wearing sturdy footwear and warm clothing is advised. The venue also welcomes school and group visits, which link well to geology and local history topics.
Operates roughly Easter/late March to end of October only.
Stuff to take with you
The things people wish they’d packed for a day out like this one.
- Refillable water bottleMost places will fill it for free.
- Snacks that survive a rucksackCheaper than the café, and buys you twenty minutes.
- Wet wipes
- Small first aid kitPlasters solve more days out than anything else here.
- Small bin bagCountry parks often have no bins at all.
- Sudocrem
- Sunglasses
- Reusable cutlery
- Lunch boxes
- Flask of tea
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