IN reply to Jonathan Wright's very concise reply to my letter on Michelangelo, I must admit that my reference to Michelangelo visiting Clearwell Caves was meant to be an ironic one, bearing in mind the recent supposition by an author that Jesus had once lived as a refugee there, while hiding from the Romans.

 But this was debated within a different publication, so I will go on to the question of Michelangelo and his use of 'Terra Rossa D'Inghilterra' or 'English Red' pigment.

 I must admit that I have no knowledge of Mr Keith Edwards of Edwards Pigments and I've no doubt that he is an expert in his field.

It is common knowledge that the iron ore  found in the Forest of Dean is of a very high quality and it is a fact that it has been extensively mined on an industrial scale from approximately 2,000 years ago, right up to the 1940s. Also that the hydrated, earthy iron ore known as 'ochre', both red and yellow, was used from at least the beginning of the 15th Century in the colour and subsequently the paint manufacturing industry.

For example, many tons of ochre were excavated from the Old Ham Iron Mine and the Lambsquay Iron Mine near Sling, and refined at the Milkwall Colour Works at Milkwall in the first part of the 20th Century and was at that time often more valuable than the iron producing ore itself.

One thing I soon discovered when I started researching the long and epic history of the Forest of Dean, is that one can be easily mis-

led. 'Anecdotal' evi­dence should never be fully trusted, nothing should be accepted at face value without investigation and all too often "the devil is in the detail". Therefore I cannot understand that as an expert in the field of colour pigments, Keith Edwards, didn't inform the Wrights that the iron oxide Venetian Red excavated from the Veneto region around Venice in Italy during the time of the High Renais­sance, was also known as Terra Rossa D'Inghilterra or Bruno D'Inghilterra  and came in various hues including violet (a form of purple) as well as red. Venetian Red was a precious pigment among a whole range of colour pigments which would have been sold to Michelangelo by Florentine monks for painting his fresco in the Sistine Chapel.

It would be wonderful if it could be proven that Michelangelo did indeed use pigments that had made the long, ar­duous journey all the way from the Forest of Dean to appear on his paint pallette for the Sistine Chapel; but until anyone presents irrefutable, documented evidence of this, I'm afraid that it will have to remain 'not proven' for me and I'll stick with the Italian Venetian Red.

I genuinely believe that Clearwell Caves are a major, unique tourist attraction in the Forest of Dean and admire what is happening there, including the production of artists' pigments.

 I have some recent 'historical' association of my own with this old iron mining complex. I  remember first examining the entrance to the old Clearwell Mine or British Pit in the mid-1960s before it was developed into Clearwell Caves, as a point of interest on walks with my future wife from her home in Sling. We would walk down over that part of Clearwell Meend called the 'British' towards the Clearwell/Coleford road and into an old surface excavation. The abandoned mine entrance was down on the right, roughly-hewn, quite low for an adult to enter and angled into the hillside. The floor was covered with rubble and difficult to negotiate, so I never ventured far into the interior. From there we often walked on to Payne's Wood, in which were ancient scowle workings that appear to be almost forgotten today.

My father-in-law, Mr Reuben Nash, who was descended from Richard Nash, a freeminer who with his brother William took out the gale for the Old Sling Pit Iron Mine Work in 1842, subsequently told me that when he was a schoolboy, he and his mates would explore the old mine with candles and a ball of string that they unrolled from the entrance as they wandered through the huge chambers or churns, retracing the footsteps of their forebears who had followed the ore deposits deep into the earth. The string was essential, because inevitably they would end up blowing each other's candle out and have to find their way back to the surface in the dark.

Mr John Williams, also a highly respected born and bred Sling man, told me only recently that he and his friends also went on similar adventures into the old mine. He remembered that they used to follow a series of steps cut into the descent while hoping that their candles wouldn't blow out.

 I myself was able to explore this mine, as well as Old Ham, which we entered from an entrance in a nearby field, in the late 1960s as a guest of the Forest of Dean Caving Club. This awesome experience enhanced my burgeoning interest in local history to a much higher degree.

These iron mines were nothing like the river caves in the region around the Brecon Beacons that I was more familiar with. The river caves were filled with the sound of constant flowing and dripping water; but the iron mines were red and dry and atmospherically seemed to resonate with the echoes of the miners who had sweated with mattock and shovel  to win the ore by candle-light.

My father-in-law, who was employed at the Fred Watkins Engineering Works in Sling all his working life, rising from gardening boy to Managing Director, also introduced me to Mostyn Watkins, brother of Baden, who at the time owned Lower Perrygrove Farm and maintained the ancient scowles known as Puzzle Wood. He had previously worked underground in the New Dun Iron Pit, initially for his father Fred Watkins who was the mine's owner, for many years.

What Mostyn didn't know about iron mining in the Sling/Clearwell area wasn't worth knowing and the knowledge that came from his personal, practical experience that he passed onto me in stories in a relatively short time, has been a real help in developing my research efforts on the Forest's industrial history over the years.

 The tourist-orientated development that has taken place on that old mine's site in recent years is admirable and I would be the last person to knock it; but on the other hand I do believe that all aspects of our Forest history should be as factually accurate as possible, not relying on speculation or hearsay and any claims should be as fully verified as possible before they enter the public domain.

John Belcher.