The Forest of Dean is a historically-forested, 42-square-mile region of western Gloucestershire, England. It was known to the Britons as din (meaning "hillfort") and to the Anglo-Saxons as the "Forest of Denu", and the area was inhabited by the Celtic Dobunni tribe before the Roman conquest of Britain. The Romans conquered the region in 50 AD, governing it from Ariconium (Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire), and Roman villas and temples were built in the area. The forest was ruled by Gwent and then Ergyng during Sub-Roman Britain, but, in 790 AD, Anglo-Saxon control of the area was cemented by King Offa of Mercia's construction of a dyke to demarcate the border with Wales. During the Viking invasions of England, Danish Vikings raided up the River Severn. The Anglo-Saxon and Norman kings later used the forest as their personal hunting grounds, and it was kept stocked with deer and wild boar. The region was also an important center of the mining industry of Medieval England. King Charles I of England later privatized the forest in an attempt to raise funds for his wars against the Scottish Covenanters, but it was once again nationalized in 1668 and the King's ironworks closed in 1672. From 1814 to 1816, Parliament enclosed 11,000 acres of woodland. The Conservative Party became unpopular in the Forest of Dean, and the Conservative headquarters at Cinderford was ransacked in 1874. The decline of the mining industry in the late 20th century led to a shift to the high technology industry by the 21st century, as well as a political realignment. The Forest of Dean constituency in Parliament had voted for the Liberal Party from 1885 to 1918, for Labour from 1918 to 2005, and the Conservative Party from 2005 onward.
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