OneGuyFromBarlick

Charcoal burner's shelter?

Anthill or termite mound?

Stanley, no, nothing to do with charcoal burning. Chinatyke, anthills and termite mounds in China might have doors in them but this isn't one.

Tizer wrote: ↑02 Oct 2017, 18:50 Stanley, no, nothing to do with charcoal burning. Chinatyke, anthills and termite mounds in China might have doors in them but this isn't one.

Oops! I didn't see the door. Perhaps they are carpenter ants.

Hop kiln?

Monk's cell?

In Ireland there are Beehive Chapels ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloch%C3%A1n

These suggestions are good but none are correct for the object in the photo. It's in (or was in) the Forest of Dean and is connected with industry rather than forestry.

brick kiln? [built by masonry ants ]

Suggestions of Maz and China for a hop kiln or brick kiln are the closest so far. A fire was lit in it but not for use as a kiln.

Smoking something. Deer? Mushrooms? New Forest ponies? Fire ants?

No, it looks like I'll have to give you a clue. You need to apply a bit of lateral thinking - or perhaps vertical thinking would be more appropriate.

A furnace for making Mushet Steel?

Forest of Dean + Charcoal ?

For cooking Acorns?
Or could it be a place to fashion emergency horse shoes?

None of those! It wasn't for making anything. Nor was it for shelter, but at the time it was in use people would have died if you'd removed it.

An air (shaft ) inlet for a mine or underground workings or vent for a tunnel.

You're very close, China. Mine is correct and vent is correct; it is for ventilation of a mine. But why have a structure like this over the top when you could just put a grid over the hole?

Tizer wrote: ↑04 Oct 2017, 15:47 You're very close, China. Mine is correct and vent is correct; it is for ventilation of a mine. But why have a structure like this over the top when you could just put a grid over the hole?

To keep the miner ants dry?

To create a draw of air by lighting a fire and drawing air up through the funnel?

I'm with Gloria on this one.....

Gloria, you've got it in one! It's described as a `beehive chimney' and was situated over a coal mine shaft near Parkend in the Forest of Dean. A fire was `kept burning continuously' on a grate inside to draw air through the workings below. It may have been used because it was in the early days before steam or electric power were available, or was later but the site was too small and isolated to have a power supply (or it was cheaper to burn the ample supplies of wood and pay a pittance to someone to keep fuelling it). Ironically, the Dean coal miners had to put up with poor ventilation because the Forest pits were free of inflammable gases; if there had been inflammable gas then more a more efficient form of ventilation would have been needed (and a more fireproof one). Incidentally, this chimney works on the principle that is demonstrated for most of us in our first school physics lesson using a horizontal box with a `chimney' at each end. Mrs Tiz ran this experiment many times in her career as a teacher!

A Justice of the Peace in 1849 commenting on the claim that poor ventilation was injurious to the health of Dean miners. To paraphrase his words: "They can't work when the ventilation is bad, therefore it can't be injurious to their health". The kind of comment you'd still hear from the likes of Ryanair and Sports Direct.

In some old mines the fires were at the bottom of the upcast shaft.....
Next one?

Try these

Sewing machine attachments, one of them looks like a "walking foot" and is the other for hemming?