|
It
is hard to picture the former iron industry in today's
countryside of small fields, woodlands and steep,
narrow, gill valleys. But in this landscape exist all
the necessary raw materials that allowed iron to be
smelted for over 2,000 years. There were no
planning laws in those days and no planning officers to
put a spanner in the works.
 The
Wealden geology of sands and clays yielded the iron ore,
as well as the stone and brick to build the furnaces;
the woodland provided the charcoal fuel; and the
numerous small streams and valleys ensured water power
for the bellows and hammers of the forges and furnaces.
For
two periods - in the first two centuries of the Roman
occupation, and during Tudor and early-Stuart times -
the Weald was the main iron-producing region in Britain.
Julius Caesar first drew attention to iron being
produced in the coastal parts of Britain. Archaeologists
have found evidence of iron working from the late Iron
Age at sites near Crowhurst and Sedlescombe in the
south-eastern High Weald.
When
the Romans invaded in AD 43, they found a
well-established local tradition of iron making, using
small, clay bloomery furnaces. With growing markets
generated by the building of towns, villas and farms,
the Romans encouraged this native industry. Sites from
the period have been found all over the eastern part of
the High Weald.
The
'Classis Britannica', or British Fleet, an imperial
supply organization as well as a navy, took a strategic
role in iron production. It managed several large
smelting sites in the area around Hastings, such as one
at Beauport Park, near Battle. This may have produced as
much as 30,000 tonnes of iron over 130 years, and a
substantial bathhouse was built there for some of the
workforce.
 We
know little about iron making in the Weald in Saxon
times, and the industry receives only one mention in the
Domesday Book for Sussex, at a location near East
Grinstead.
However,
during the Middle Ages iron production grew steadily,
concentrated more in the northern part of the Weald.
Accounts have survived from 14th-century works at
Tudeley in Kent, and excavations have confirmed medieval
references to iron makers in Crawley and near Horsham.
Towards the end of the period, water-power began to be
used for forging iron, heralding the introduction, in
1496, of the blast furnace.
Introduced
from northern France, and operated by skilled, immigrant
workers, the blast furnace was a much larger, and more
permanent structure than the bloomery; and instead of a
few kilos of iron being made, daily output was nearer a
tonne.
 More
ore and charcoal were required, and the need to operate
the bellows by waterpower, instead of by hand, meant
that ponds had to be created to store the water. In
addition, the higher temperatures in the furnace meant
that a different type of iron was being produced. A
second process ˜ the forge, with its own pond and
supply of charcoal - was needed to refine the iron.
By
the mid-16th century there were 50 furnaces and forges,
and that number had doubled 25 years later. All over the
Weald, the iron industry was having an effect, with
large numbers of people employed in digging ore, cutting
wood and transporting both raw materials and products.
Most
furnaces made "sows", or lengths, of iron for
refining, but from the 1540s a small number began to
make cast-iron cannon, a product that grew to be a
profitable, and sometimes illegal, export. Improvements
in house design led to the building of chimneys, and the
need for iron fire-backs to protect the brickwork. Many
Wealden farmhouses contain examples of these decorative
and functional plates. In several Wealden churches there
are examples of iron memorials. The oldest is in Burwash,
dating from the 1530s, while Wadhurst church has over
30, dating from the early-17th to the late-18th
centuries.
As
competition from imported iron increased, the Wealden
ironmasters began to concentrate increasingly on gun
founding, and examples can be found all over the world,
wherever Britain fought or traded. Eventually, the onset
of the Industrial Revolution took heavy industry north
to the coalfields, and the last furnace in the Weald, at
Ashburnham, closed in 1813.
So,
where are the remains of iron production? Building stone
was too valuable in the Weald to be left unused, so the
works were dismantled, and the woods grew back over the
former sites. Only the tell-tale waste, called slag,
from the smelting process, and some of the hammer and
furnace ponds are left to remind us of a once-great
Wealden industry.
THE
WEALDEN IRON RESEARCH GROUP
The
Wealden Iron Research Group was founded in 1968, by
Henry Cleere and David Crossley, to update the
pioneering work of Ernest Straker whose monograph,
Wealden Iron, had been published in 1931. Starting off
as a federation of local groups, it coalesced in the
early 1970s under the leadership of the late Fred
Tebbutt, a distinguished amateur archæologist, who
became its first Chairman. Much of the early work of the
group centred around the update of Straker's work, but
it was soon realised that much lay undiscovered.
A
survey of an area of the central Weald revealed a dense
concentration of early iron smelting sites, or
bloomeries, and this has acted as an incentive for
future work. Experiments in making iron were started,
and the group won the BBC's 'Chronicle' Award for Archæology
in 1981. The publication, in 1985, of The
Iron Industry of the Weald, by Cleere and
Crossley, was the fulfilment of the group's initial aim,
but many questions remained unanswered, and the group
continues an active programme of research.
LINKS:
History
and Archeology
The
Making of the High Weald Sussex
Archaeological Society The
Sussex Weald
CBA
SouthEast Romans
in Sussex Classis
Britannica
Metallurgy
and Smelting
Experimental
Iron Smelting at Scatness Experimental
Bloomery Site in Wales
Whitehall
Farm Roman Villa smelting experiments
Experimental
Iron Smelting at Rievaulx Historical
Metallurgy Society
Department
of Materials Science, Oxford University
Museums
/ Educational
The
Ironbridge Gorge Museums - Shropshire UK
Sowley
Ironworks, Hampshire Duddon
Furnace, Cumbria
The
Real Wrought Iron Company The
Wilkinson Family, Ironmasters
Sites
outside UK
Forges
du Saint Maurice, in Canada Saugus
Furnace, Massachusetts, USA Hopewell
Furnace, Pennsylvania, USA
Maison
de la Métallurgie et de l'Industrie de Liège (in
French) Lapphyttan
Ironworks - Sweden
How
to join WIRG
Membership
of WIRG is open to individuals, families and
institutions, students and those of pensionable age, and
includes a bi-annual Newsletter and the Wealden
Iron Bulletin. Activities
include a Field Group, which organises a programme of
fieldwork in the autumn and winter, bi-annual meetings
with visiting speakers, small-scale excavations, and a
variety of other projects undertaken by its members.
WIRG administers the Tebbutt Research Fund which awards
small grants towards research into the Wealden iron
industry.
The
current subscription rates in Sterling are:
|
Individual
|
£7.00
|
(Optional)
OAP
|
£6.00
|
|
Family
|
£10.00
|
Student
|
£3.00
|
|
Institution
|
£10.00
|
|
|
You
may find out more by emailing Ann
Callow.
To
join WIRG, click HERE
for a printable application form. Complete and post it
to The Hon. Secretary WIRG, Glazier's Forge Farm,
Dallington, Sussex, TN21. 9JJ with your cheque made
payable (in sterling) to Wealden Iron Research Group.
Battle
Abbey
Battle
Museum of Local History
Batemans
Bexhill
Museum
Bexhill
Museum of Costume & Social History
Bodiam
Castle
Buckleys
Yesterdays World
Carr
Taylor Vineyards
Clambers
De
La Warr Pavilion
Farmworld
Great
Dixter
Hastings
Castle
Hastings
Fishermen's Museum
Hastings
Museum & Art Gallery
Herstmonceux
Castle
Kent
& East Sussex Railway
Merriments
Gardens
Old
Town Hall Museum
Pashley
Manor Gardens
Pevensey
Castle
Rye
Art Gallery
Rye
Audio Walks
Rye
Castle Museum
Rye
Story
Underwater
World - Hastings
Sedlescombe
Vineyards
Shipwreck
Heritage Centre
Smugglers
Adventure
White
Rock Theatre
Winchelsea
Court Hall Museum
South-East
Region | East
Sussex | Notable
House Sites | MultiMap
| The
National Trust
|
