Kingswood, so often mentioned, was formerly a royal chase, containing between three and four thousand acres; but, previous to the rise of Methodism, it had been gradually appropriated by the several lords whose estates encircled it. The deer had disappeared, and the greater part of the wood also; coal mines had been discovered, and it was now inhabited by a race of people, as lawless as the foresters, their forefathers, but far more brutal; and differing as much from the people of the surrounding country in dialect as in appearance. They had no place of worship; for Kingswood then belonged to the parish of St. Philip, and was, at least, three miles distant from the parish church.[308] The people were famous for neither fearing God nor regarding man; and so ignorant of sacred things that they seemed but one remove from the beasts that perish. They were utterly without desire of instruction, as well as without the means of it. The place resounded with cursing and blasphemy. It was filled with clamour and bitterness, wrath and envyings, idle diversions, drunkenness, and uncleanness;[309] a hell upon earth. Only fifteen weeks before Whitefield’s first visit, the colliers had risen with clubs and firearms, and gone from pit to pit threatening the lives of all the workmen who would not join them in defeating the ends of justice, in reference to a riot that had occurred a short time previously. At White Hill, four mines were filled up; and carts, reels, and ropes belonging to others were cut and burned. The soldiers were called out, and the swarthy rioters ran away.[310] Kingswood was Whitefield’s first field-pulpit, for here, on February 17, 1739, he began his glorious career of out-door preaching. Within six weeks after this, the day before Wesley came to Bristol, Whitefield dined with the colliers, who contributed upwards of £20 towards the erection of a school. Four days after this, the miners prepared him another hospitable entertainment, after which he laid the foundation stone, knelt upon it, and offered prayer, to which the colliers said, “Amen.”[311]