THE longest sentence in English history has, possibly, been discovered in the vaults of Forest Enterprise's Coleford Bank House HQ. Running to 15,000 words the 1834 document covers 12 closely-printed pages before reaching a full stop.
"It's not an easy read," says Deputy Gaveller John Harvey. "But it was, and is, an important text which had to be written in legalise – without a full stop."
The sentence describes the 'Perambulation,' or very long walk, undertaken by Forest Commissioners almost 200 years ago. They were checking the official bounds of the Statutory Forest – still a live issue today.
"We did the walk ourselves a couple of years ago," says John. "It was 58 miles around, so we took it in stages."
The Commissioners were preparing the groundwork for the 1838 Dean Forest Mines Act, which remains the basis of much Forest law today. They followed Perambulations which, from time to time, were organised from Norman times onwards.
"As part of our walk, we were checking on the old boundary stones which marked the Forest area," John continues. "They run from No 1 at Blaize Bailey near Littledean to 218 on the way back.
"We have found 45 of them, and have a project to preserve these and replace those which are missing."