Cinderford

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Template:GBdot Cinderford is a small town in Gloucestershire, England, with a population of 8,116 people (2001 census). The town lies on the eastern fringe of the Forest of Dean. The town only came into existence in the 19th Century, due to the rapid expansions of the coal mines. There is a visual clue to Cinderford's origins in that the style and layout of the town (long rows of identical terraced housing) is very similar to many of the Welsh Valley towns that also grew up on the back of coal mining. When the mines closed in the 1950s, Cinderford suffered worse than Coleford, the other main town of the Forest, because it had few other industries to fall back on. Today Cinderford has some light and heavy industry, but generally the town is not doing as well economically as the older towns in the west of the Forest, and unemployment in the town is quite high.