The Cinderbury Experience

There is a growing demand for unusual and challenging activity holidays. The ‘Cinderbury Experience’ will certainly challenge its participants to the full! Step back in time two thousand years to where lives are ruled only by the weather, the hours of daylight, and the demands of human survival.

For either a weekend (Friday to Sunday) or a full week, guests will have the opportunity to live the Iron Age life. They will dress, eat, sleep, work and play in the roles of iron age villagers. Cut off from the modern world inside the palisaded walls of Cinderbury Iron Age Farm the ‘villagers’ will acquire skills necessary to survive the iron age – cooking their own food, weaving their own cloth, making their own pots, smelting the iron to forge their own tools, hearing stories of iron age gods and heroes, and celebrating a simpler way of life.

Each ‘experience’ week, or weekend, will cater for between ten and twenty people and, where possible, will include such subjects as bronze casting, wood working, bow making, flint knapping, clothes making, ancient music, animal husbandry, ancient farming skills, and roundhouse building. Qualified, enthusiastic and committed staff will be on hand at all times to guide our residential visitors through the ‘Cinderbury Experience’.

Potential

In June 2002 the final report of the Forest of Dean Tourism Development Potential Study outlined several key aspects necessary for tourism in the area to prosper. It stated bluntly that:

tourism is an industry in need of a boost.

For future market potential it stated that:

targets for future growth should include special interest activities.

As part of Developing and Marketing Themes – Actions and Priorities, under the heading of Celebration of the Forest it suggested that:

the spirit and traditional rights of the Forest should be respected,

The Forest’s industrial and cultural heritage should be carefully used
to highlight the area’s local distinctiveness,

Maximum use should be made of indigenous Forest products and producers,

Innovative techniques should be used to introduce visitors to the Forest – its heritage, natural history and culture.

Cinderbury amply fulfils all of these criteria and can only add a significant and much-needed boost to the Forest of Dean’s economy.

Family Tourism

Today’s parents are also conscious of their duty to support educational activity, as well as providing ‘something different’ to keep their children occupied while they too, enjoy their break away from home. Cinderbury will provide exactly what each member of the family needs. And as a growing, organic attraction, visitors can return year after year and always find something new and different.

Local Tourism

The Forest of Dean enjoys enviable communication routes from the East and West Midlands, Bristol, Wales, and Hereford via the extensive network of motorways in the area, and the rail link to Lydney.

National and International Tourism

Due to the unique nature of the Cinderbury Experience it is anticipated that visitors will be willing to travel almost any distance to take part. It is expected there will be major interest from the American market as living history is already an established educational and leisure concept in the USA.