The Dean Heritage Centre, in a restored mill building in a wooded valley on the forest's eastern edge, tells the history of the forest, with reconstructions of a forester's cottage, a waterwheel, and a "beam engine" (a primitive steam engine used to pump water from flooded coal mines). Other galleries show art with local themes as well as furniture, ornaments, and the like made from local oak. Also within the grounds is a smallholding (a small farm), with a couple of resident pigs, and a charcoal burner's hut. Craftspeople work in the outbuildings.
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