THE remarkable story of how men moved a Forest of Dean mountain is told in this year’s edition of The New Regard, the journal of the Forest of Dean Local History Society.

In a year, an army of lorry drivers swamped local roads carrying away thousands of tons of waste material dug out over the previous century from deep beneath the Forest.

The ‘shale lorries’ became notorious as they carried waste to Llanwern, near Newport, where the material was used to stabilise marshland for the construction of a new steelworks.

As many as 5,000 trips a day were made to the works and a constant snake of vehicles travelled from Parkend’s New Fancy pit to south Wales.

The tip at New Fancy was the largest in the Forest until it was removed to south Wales.

Drivers were paid by the load and in the pre-health and safety days of 1960 there was occasional chaos — in one week it was reported that 86 Forest sheep were killed.

In total, two-thirds of the tip was removed and the story is one of eight in the journal which will be available at the unveiling of a plaque on Saturday (September 10) telling the history of New Fancy.

The ceremony will be carried out above shaft number two by the society’s president, Baroness Jan Royall at11.15am.

There is an open invitation to the occasion and history society members will be on hand to explain the Geomap and the miners’ memorial.

There will be music from Parkend Band — which was formed from a brass band at the colliery — and its programme will include Parkend March, a piece of music written especially for the band more than half a century ago and only recently rediscovered.