Industrial Biography, Iron Workers and Tool Makers Part 2

[25] The precise time at which Andrea de Ferrara flourished cannot be fixed with accuracy; but Sir Waiter Scott, in one of the notes to Waverley, says he is believed to have been a foreign artist brought over by James IV. or V. of Scotland to instruct the Scots in the manufacture of sword-blades. The genuine weapons have a crown marked on the blades.

[26] Mr. Parkes, in his Essay on the Manufacture of Edge Tools, says, "Had this ingenious artist thought of a bath of oil, he might have heated this by means of a furnace underneath it, and by the use of a thermometer, to the exact point which he found necessary; though it is inconvenient to have to employ a thermometer for every distinct operation. Or, if he had been in the possession of a proper bath of fusible metal, he would have attained the necessary certainty in his process, and need not have immured himself in a subterranean apartment.--PARKES' Essays, 1841, p. 495.

[27] HOLINSHED, History of England. It was even said to have been one of the objects of the Spanish Armada to get the oaks of the Forest of Dean destroyed, in order to prevent further smelting of the iron. Thus Evelyn, in his Sylva, says, "I have heard that in the great expedition of 1588 it was expressly enjoined the Spanish Armada that if, when landed, they should not be able to subdue our nation and make good their conquest, they should yet be sure not to leave a tree standing in the Forest of Dean."--NICHOLS, History of the Forest of Dean, p. 22.

CHAPTER II.

EARLY ENGLISH IRON MANUFACTURE.

"He that well observes it, and hath known the welds of Suss.e.x, Surry, and Kent', the grand nursery especially of oake and beech, shal find such an alteration, within lesse than 30 yeeres, as may well strike a feare, lest few yeeres more, as pestilent as the former, will leave fewe good trees standing in those welds. Such a heate issueth out of the many forges and furnaces for the making of iron, and out of the gla.s.se kilnes, as hath devoured many famous woods within the welds,"--JOHN NORDEN, Surveyors' Dialogue (1607).

Few records exist of the manufacture of iron in England in early times.

After the Romans left the island, the British, or more probably the Teutonic tribes settled along the south coast, continued the smelting and manufacture of the metal after the methods taught them by the colonists. In the midst of the insecurity, however, engendered by civil war and social changes, the pursuits of industry must necessarily have been considerably interfered with, and the art of iron-forging became neglected. No notice of iron being made in Suss.e.x occurs in Domesday Book, from which it would appear that the manufacture had in a great measure ceased in that county at the time of the Conquest, though it was continued in the iron-producing districts bordering on Wales.

In many of the Anglo-Saxon graves which have been opened, long iron swords have been found, showing that weapons of that metal were in common use. But it is probable that iron was still scarce, as ploughs and other agricultural implements continued to be made of wood,--one of the Anglo-Saxon laws enacting that no man should undertake to guide a plough who could not make one; and that the cords with which it was bound should be of twisted willows. The metal was held in esteem princ.i.p.ally as the material of war. All male adults were required to be provided with weapons, and honour was awarded to such artificers as excelled in the fabrication of swords, arms, and defensive armour.[1]

Camden incidentally states that the manufacture of iron was continued in the western counties during the Saxon era, more particularly in the Forest of Dean, and that in the time of Edward the Confessor the tribute paid by the city of Gloucester consisted almost entirely of iron rods wrought to a size fit for making nails for the king's s.h.i.+ps.

An old religious writer speaks of the ironworkers of that day as heathenish in their manners, puffed up with pride, and inflated with worldly prosperity. On the occasion of St. Egwin's visit to the smiths of Alcester, as we are told in the legend, he found then given up to every kind of luxury; and when he proceeded to preach unto them, they beat upon their anvils in contempt of his doctrine so as completely to deafen him; upon which he addressed his prayers to heaven, and the town was immediately destroyed.[2]

But the first reception given to John Wesley by the miners of the Forest of Dean, more than a thousand years later, was perhaps scarcely more gratifying than that given to St. Egwin.

That working in iron was regarded as an honourable and useful calling in the Middle Ages, is apparent from the extent to which it was followed by the monks, some of whom were excellent craftsmen. Thus St.

Dunstan, who governed England in the time of Edwy the Fair, was a skilled blacksmith and metallurgist. He is said to have had a forge even in his bedroom, and it was there that his reputed encounter with Satan occurred, in which of course the saint came off the victor.

There was another monk of St. Alban's, called Anketil, who flourished in the twelfth century, so famous for his skill as a worker in iron, silver, gold, jewelry, and gilding, that he was invited by the king of Denmark to be his goldsmith and banker. A pair of gold and silver candlesticks of his manufacture, presented by the abbot of St. Alban's to Pope Adrian IV., were so much esteemed for their exquisite workmans.h.i.+p that they were consecrated to St. Peter, and were the means of obtaining high ecclesiastical distinction for the abbey.

We also find that the abbots of monasteries situated in the iron districts, among their other labours, devoted themselves to the manufacture of iron from the ore. The extensive beds of cinders still found in the immediate neighbourhood of Rievaulx and Hackness, in Yorks.h.i.+re, show that the monks were well acquainted with the art of forging, and early turned to account the riches of the Cleveland ironstone. In the Forest of Dean also, the abbot of Flaxley was possessed of one stationary and one itinerant forge, by grant from Henry II, and he was allowed two oaks weekly for fuel,--a privilege afterwards commuted, in 1258, for Abbot's Wood of 872 acres, which was held by the abbey until its dissolution in the reign of Henry VIII. At the same time the Earl of Warwick had forges at work in his woods at Lydney; and in 1282, as many as 72 forges were leased from the Crown by various iron-smelters in the same Forest of Dean.

There are numerous indications of iron-smelting having been conducted on a considerable scale at some remote period in the neighbourhood of Leeds, in Yorks.h.i.+re. In digging out the foundations of houses in Briggate, the princ.i.p.al street of that town, many "bell pits" have been brought to light, from which ironstone has been removed. The new cemetery at Burmandtofts, in the same town, was in like manner found pitted over with these ancient holes. The miner seems to have dug a well about 6 feet in diameter, and so soon as he reached the mineral, he worked it away all round, leaving the bell-shaped cavities in question. He did not attempt any gallery excavations, but when the pit was exhausted, a fresh one was sunk. The ore, when dug, was transported, most probably on horses' backs, to the adjacent districts for the convenience of fuel. For it was easier to carry the mineral to the wood--then exclusively used for smelting'--than to bring the wood to the mineral. Hence the numerous heaps of scoriae found in the neighbourhood of Leeds,--at Middleton, Whitkirk, and Horsforth--all within the borough. At Horsforth, they are found in conglomerated ma.s.ses from 30 to 40 yards long, and of considerable width and depth.

The remains of these cinder-beds in various positions, some of them near the summit of the hill, tend to show, that as the trees were consumed, a new wind furnace was erected in another situation, in order to lessen the labour of carrying the fuel. There are also deposits of a similar kind at Kirkby Overblow, a village a few miles to the north-east of Leeds; and Th.o.r.esby states that the place was so called because it was the village of the "Ore blowers,"--hence the corruption of "Overblow." A discovery has recently been made among the papers of the Wentworth family, of a contract for supplying wood and ore for iron "blomes" at Kirskill near Otley, in the fourteenth century;[3] though the manufacture near that place has long since ceased.

Although the making of iron was thus carried on in various parts of England in the Middle Ages, the quant.i.ty produced was altogether insufficient to meet the ordinary demand, as it appears from our early records to have long continued one of the princ.i.p.al articles imported from foreign countries. English iron was not only dearer, but it was much inferior in quality to that manufactured abroad; and hence all the best arms and tools continued to be made of foreign iron. Indeed the scarcity of this metal occasionally led to great inconvenience, and to prevent its rising in price Parliament enacted, in 1354, that no iron, either wrought or unwrought, should be exported, under heavy penalties.

For nearly two hundred years--that is, throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries--the English market was princ.i.p.ally supplied with iron and steel from Spain and Germany; the foreign merchants of the Steelyard doing a large and profitable trade in those commodities.

While the woollen and other branches of trade were making considerable progress, the manufacture of iron stood still. Among the lists of articles, the importation of which was prohibited in Edward IV.'s reign, with a view to the protection of domestic manufactures, we find no mention of iron, which was still, as a matter of necessity, allowed to come freely from abroad.

The first indications of revival in the iron manufacture showed themselves in Suss.e.x, a district in which the Romans had established extensive works, and where smelting operations were carried on to a partial extent in the neighbourhood of Lewes, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, where the iron was princ.i.p.ally made into nails and horse-shoes. The county abounds in ironstone, which is contained in the sandstone beds of the Forest ridge, lying between the chalk and oolite of the district, called by geologists the Hastings sand. The beds run in a north-westerly direction, by Ashburnham and Heathfield, to Crowborough and thereabouts. In early times the region was covered with wood, and was known as the Great Forest of Anderida. The Weald, or wild wood, abounded in oaks of great size, suitable for smelting ore; and the proximity of the mineral to the timber, as well as the situation of the district in the neighbourhood of the capital, sufficiently account for the Suss.e.x iron-works being among the most important which existed in England previous to the discovery of smelting by pit-coal.

The iron manufacturers of the south were especially busy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Their works were established near to the beds of ore, and in places where water-power existed, or could be provided by artificial means. Hence the numerous artificial ponds which are still to be found all over the Suss.e.x iron district. Dams of earth, called "pond-bays," were thrown across watercourses, with convenient outlets built of masonry, wherein was set the great wheel which worked the hammer or blew the furnace. Portions of the adjoining forest-land were granted or leased to the iron-smelters; and the many places still known by the name of "Chart" in the Weald, probably mark the lands chartered for the purpose of supplying the iron-works with their necessary fuel. The cast-iron tombstones and slabs in many Suss.e.x churchyards,--the andirons and chimney backs[4] still found in old Suss.e.x mansions and farm-houses, and such names as Furnace Place, Cinder Hill, Forge Farm, and Hammer Pond, which are of very frequent occurrence throughout the county, clearly mark the extent and activity of this ancient branch of industry.[5] Steel was also manufactured at several places in the county, more particularly at Steel-Forge Land, Warbleton, and at Robertsbridge. The steel was said to be of good quality, resembling Swedish--both alike depending for their excellence on the exclusive use of charcoal in smelting the ore,--iron so produced maintaining its superiority over coal-smelted iron to this day.

When cannon came to be employed in war, the nearness of Suss.e.x to London and the Cinque Forts gave it a great advantage over the remoter iron-producing districts in the north and west of England, and for a long time the iron-works of this county enjoyed almost a monopoly of the manufacture. The metal was still too precious to be used for cannon b.a.l.l.s, which were hewn of stone from quarries on Maidstone Heath. Iron was only available, and that in limited quant.i.ties, for the fabrication of the cannon themselves, and wrought-iron was chiefly used for the purpose. An old mortar which formerly lay on Eridge Green, near Frant, is said to have been the first mortar made in England;[6] only the chamber was cast, while the tube consisted of bars strongly hooped together. Although the local distich says that

"Master Huggett and his man John They did cast the first cannon,"

there is every reason to believe that both cannons and mortars were made in Suss.e.x before Huggett's time; the old hooped guns in the Tower being of the date of Henry VI. The first cast-iron cannons of English manufacture were made at Buxtead, in Suss.e.x, in 1543, by Ralph Hogge, master founder, who employed as his princ.i.p.al a.s.sistant one Peter Baude, a Frenchman. Gun-founding was a French invention, and Mr. Lower supposes that Hogge brought over Baude from France to teach his workmen the method of casting the guns. About the same time Hogge employed a skilled Flemish gunsmith named Peter Van Collet, who, according to Stowe, "devised or caused to be made certain mortar pieces, being at the mouth from eleven to nine inches wide, for the use whereof the said Peter caused to be made certain hollow shot of cast-iron to be stuffed with fyrework, whereof the bigger sort for the same has screws of iron to receive a match to carry fyre for to break in small pieces the said hollow shot, whereof the smallest piece hitting a man would kill or spoil him." In short, Peter Van Collet here introduced the manufacture of the explosive sh.e.l.l in the form in which it continued to be used down to our own day.

Baude, the Frenchman, afterwards set up business on his own account, making many guns, both of bra.s.s and iron, some of which are still preserved in the Tower.[7] Other workmen, learning the trade from him, also began to manufacture on their own account; one of Baude's servants, named John Johnson, and after him his son Thomas, becoming famous for the excellence of their cast-iron guns. The Hogges continued the business for several generations, and became a wealthy county family. Huggett was another cannon maker of repute; and Owen became celebrated for his bra.s.s culverins. Mr. Lower mentions, as a curious instance of the tenacity with which families continue to follow a particular vocation, that many persons of the name of Huggett still carry on the trade of blacksmith in East Suss.e.x. But most of the early workmen at the Suss.e.x iron-works, as in other branches of skilled industry in England during the sixteenth century, were foreigners--Flemish and French--many of whom had taken refuge in this country from the religious persecutions then raging abroad, while others, of special skill, were invited over by the iron manufacturers to instruct their workmen in the art of metal-founding.[8]

As much wealth was gained by the pursuit of the revived iron manufacture in Suss.e.x, iron-mills rapidly extended over the ore-yielding district. The landed proprietors entered with zeal into this new branch of industry, and when wood ran short, they did not hesitate to sacrifice their ancestral oaks to provide fuel for the furnaces. Mr. Lower says even the most ancient families, such as the Nevilles, Howards, Percys, Stanleys, Montagues, Pelhams, Ashburnhams, Sidneys, Sackvilles, Dacres, and Finches, prosecuted the manufacture with all the apparent ardour of Birmingham and Wolverhampton men in modern times. William Penn, the courtier Quaker, had iron-furnaces at Hawkhurst and other places in Suss.e.x. The ruins of the Ashburnham forge, situated a few miles to the north-east of Battle, still serve to indicate the extent of the manufacture. At the upper part of the valley in which the works were situated, an artificial lake was formed by constructing an embankment across the watercourse descending from the higher ground,[9] and thus a sufficient fall of water was procured for the purpose of blowing the furnaces, the site of which is still marked by surrounding mounds of iron cinders and charcoal waste. Three quarters of a mile lower down the valley stood the forge, also provided with water-power for working the hammer; and some of the old buildings are still standing, among others the boring-house, of small size, now used as an ordinary labourer's cottage, where the guns were bored. The machine was a mere upright drill worked by the water-wheel, which was only eighteen inches across the breast. The property belonged, as it still does, to the Ashburnham family, who are said to have derived great wealth from the manufacture of guns at their works, which were among the last carried on in Suss.e.x. The Ashburnham iron was distinguished for its toughness, and was said to be equal to the best Spanish or Swedish iron.

Many new men also became enriched, and founded county families; the Fuller family frankly avowing their origin in the singular motto of Carbone et forcipibus--literally, by charcoal and tongs.[10]

Men then went into Suss.e.x to push their fortunes at the forges, as they now do in Wales or Staffords.h.i.+re; and they succeeded then, as they do now, by dint of application, industry, and energy. The Suss.e.x Archaeological Papers for 1860 contain a curious record of such an adventurer, in the history of the founder of the Gale family. Leonard Gale was born in 1620 at Riverhead, near Sevenoaks, where his father pursued the trade of a blacksmith. When the youth had reached his seventeenth year, his father and mother, with five of their sons and daughters, died of the plague, Leonard and his brother being the only members of the family that survived. The patrimony of 200L. left them was soon spent; after which Leonard paid off his servants, and took to work diligently at his father's trade. Saving a little money, he determined to go down into Suss.e.x, where we shortly find him working the St. Leonard's Forge, and afterwards the Tensley Forge near Crawley, and the Cowden Iron-works, which then bore a high reputation.

After forty years' labour, he acc.u.mulated a good fortune, which he left to his son of the same name, who went on iron-forging, and eventually became a county gentleman, owner of the house and estate of Crabbett near Worth, and Member of Parliament for East Grinstead.

Several of the new families, however, after occupying a high position in the county, again subsided into the labouring cla.s.s, ill.u.s.trating the Lancas.h.i.+re proverb of "Twice clogs, once boots," the sons squandering what the father's had gathered, and falling back into the ranks again. Thus the great Fowles family of Riverhall disappeared altogether from Suss.e.x. One of them built the fine mansion of Riverhall, n.o.ble even in decay. Another had a grant of free warren from King James over his estates in Wadhurst, Frant, Rotherfield, and Mayfield. Mr. Lower says the fourth in descent from this person kept the turnpike-gate at Wadhurst, and that the last of the family, a day-labourer, emigrated to America in 1839, carrying with him, as the sole relic of his family greatness, the royal grant of free warren given to his ancestor. The Barhams and Mansers were also great iron-men, officiating as high sheriffs of the county at different times, and occupying s.p.a.cious mansions. One branch of these families terminated, Mr. Lower says, with Nicholas Barham, who died in the workhouse at Wadhurst in 1788; and another continues to be represented by a wheelwright at Wadhurst of the same name.

The iron manufacture of Suss.e.x reached its height towards the close of the reign of Elizabeth, when the trade became so prosperous that, instead of importing iron, England began to export it in considerable quant.i.ties, in the shape of iron ordnance. Sir Thomas Leighton and Sir Henry Neville had obtained patents from the queen, which enabled them to send their ordnance abroad, the consequence of which was that the Spaniards were found arming their s.h.i.+ps and fighting us with guns of our own manufacture. Sir Walter Raleigh, calling attention to the subject in the House of Commons, said, "I am sure heretofore one s.h.i.+p of Her Majesty's was able to beat ten Spaniards, but now, by reason of our own ordnance, we are hardly matcht one to one." Proclamations were issued forbidding the export of iron and bra.s.s ordnance, and a bill was brought into Parliament to put a stop to the trade; but, not withstanding these prohibitions, the Suss.e.x guns long continued to be smuggled out of the country in considerable numbers. "It is almost incredible," says Camden, "how many guns are made of the iron in this county. Count Gondomar (the Spanish amba.s.sador) well knew their goodness when he so often begged of King James the boon to export them." Though the king refused his sanction, it appears that Sir Anthony s.h.i.+rley of Weston, an extensive iron-master, succeeded in forwarding to the King of Spain a hundred pieces of cannon.

So active were the Suss.e.x manufacturers, and so brisk was the trade they carried on, that during the reign of James I. it is supposed one-half of the whole quant.i.ty of iron produced in England was made there. Simon Sturtevant, in his 'Treatise of Metallica,' published in 1612, estimates the whole number of iron-mills in England and Wales at 800, of which, he says, "there are foure hundred milnes in Surry, Kent, and Suss.e.x, as the townsmen of Haslemere have testified and numbered unto me." But the townsmen of Haslemere must certainly have been exaggerating, unless they counted smiths' and farriers' shops in the number of iron-mills. About the same time that Sturtevant's treatise was published, there appeared a treatise ent.i.tled the 'Surveyor's Dialogue,' by one John Norden, the object of which was to make out a case against the iron-works and their being allowed to burn up the timber of the country for fuel. Yet Norden does not make the number of iron-works much more than a third of Sturtevant's estimate. He says, "I have heard that there are or lately were in Suss.e.x neere 140 hammers and furnaces for iron, and in it and Surrey adjoining three or four gla.s.se-houses." Even the smaller number stated by Norden, however, shows that Suss.e.x was then regarded as the princ.i.p.al seat of the iron-trade. Camden vividly describes the noise and bustle of the manufacture--the working of the heavy hammers, which, "beating upon the iron, fill the neighbourhood round about, day and night, with continual noise." These hammers were for the most part worked by the power of water, carefully stored in the artificial "Hammer-ponds" above described. The hammer-shaft was usually of ash, about 9 feet long, clamped at intervals with iron hoops. It was worked by the revolutions of the water-wheel, furnished with projecting arms or k.n.o.bs to raise the hammer, which fell as each k.n.o.b pa.s.sed, the rapidity of its action of course depending on the velocity with which the water-wheel revolved. The forge-blast was also worked for the most part by water-power. Where the furnaces were small, the blast was produced by leather bellows worked by hand, or by a horse walking in a gin. The foot-blasts of the earlier iron-smelters were so imperfect that but a small proportion of the ore was reduced, so that the iron-makers of later times, more particularly in the Forest of Dean, instead of digging for ironstone, resorted to the beds of ancient scoriae for their princ.i.p.al supply of the mineral.

Notwithstanding the large number of furnaces in blast throughout the county of Suss.e.x at the period we refer to, their produce was comparatively small, and must not be measured by the enormous produce of modern iron-works; for while an iron-furnace of the present day will easily turn out 150 tons of pig per week, the best of the older furnaces did not produce more than from three to four tons. One of the last extensive contracts executed in Suss.e.x was the casting of the iron rails which enclose St. Paul's Cathedral. The contract was thought too large for one iron-master to undertake, and it was consequently distributed amongst several contractors, though the princ.i.p.al part of the work was executed at Lamberhurst, near Tunbridge Wells. But to produce the comparatively small quant.i.ty of iron turned out by the old works, the consumption of timber was enormous; for the making of every ton of pig-iron required four loads of timber converted into charcoal fuel, and the making of every ton of bar-iron required three additional loads. Thus, notwithstanding the indispensable need of iron, the extension of the manufacture, by threatening the destruction of the timber of the southern counties, came to be regarded in the light of a national calamity. Up to a certain point, the clearing of the Weald of its dense growth of underwood had been of advantage, by affording better opportunities for the operations of agriculture. But the "voragious iron-mills" were proceeding to swallow up everything that would burn, and the old forest growths were rapidly disappearing. An entire wood was soon exhausted, and long time was needed before it grew again. At Lamberhurst alone, though the produce was only about five tons of iron a-week, the annual consumption of wood was about 200,000 cords! Wood continued to be the only material used for fuel generally--a strong prejudice existing against the use of sea-coal for domestic purposes.[11] It therefore began to be feared that there would be no available fuel left within practicable reach of the metropolis; and the contingency of having to face the rigorous cold of an English winter without fuel naturally occasioning much alarm, the action of the Government was deemed necessary to remedy the apprehended evil.

To check the destruction of wood near London, an Act was pa.s.sed in 1581 prohibiting its conversion into fuel for the making of iron within fourteen miles of the Thames, forbidding the erection of new ironworks within twenty-two miles of London, and restricting the number of works in Kent, Surrey, and Suss.e.x, beyond the above limits. Similar enactments were made in future Parliaments with the same object, which had the effect of checking the trade, and several of the Suss.e.x ironmasters were under the necessity of removing their works elsewhere.

Some of them migrated to Glamorgans.h.i.+re, in South Wales, because of the abundance of timber as well as ironstone in that quarter, and there set up their forges, more particularly at Aberdare and Merthyr Tydvil. Mr.

Llewellin has recently published an interesting account of their proceedings, with descriptions of their works,[12] remains of which still exist at Llwydcoed, Pontyryns, and other places in the Aberdare valley. Among the Suss.e.x masters who settled in Glamorgans.h.i.+re for the purpose of carrying on the iron manufacture, were Walter Burrell, the friend of John Ray, the naturalist, one of the Morleys of Glynde in Suss.e.x, the Relfes from Mayfield, and the Cheneys from Crawley.

Notwithstanding these migrations of enterprising manufacturers, the iron trade of Suss.e.x continued to exist until the middle of the seventeenth century, when the waste of timber was again urged upon the attention of Parliament, and the penalties for infringing the statutes seem to have been more rigorously enforced. The trade then suffered a more serious check; and during the civil wars, a heavy blow was given to it by the destruction of the works belonging to all royalists, which was accomplished by a division of the army under Sir William Waller.

Most of the Welsh ironworks were razed to the ground about the same time, and were not again rebuilt. And after the Restoration, in 1674, all the royal ironworks in the Forest of Dean were demolished, leaving only such to be supplied with ore as were beyond the forest limits; the reason alleged for this measure being lest the iron manufacture should endanger the supply of timber required for s.h.i.+pbuilding and other necessary purposes.

From this time the iron manufacture of Suss.e.x, as of England generally, rapidly declined. In 1740 there were only fifty-nine furnaces in all England, of which ten were in Suss.e.x; and in 1788 there were only two.

A few years later, and the Suss.e.x iron furnaces were blown out altogether. Farnhurst, in western, and Ashburnham, in eastern Suss.e.x, witnessed the total extinction of the manufacture. The din of the iron hammer was hushed, the glare of the furnace faded, the last blast of the bellows was blown, and the district returned to its original rural solitude. Some of the furnace-ponds were drained and planted with hops or willows; others formed beautiful lakes in retired pleasure-grounds; while the remainder were used to drive flour-mills, as the streams in North Kent, instead of driving fulling-mills, were employed to work paper-mills. All that now remains of the old iron-works are the extensive beds of cinders from which material is occasionally taken to mend the Suss.e.x roads, and the numerous furnace-ponds, hammer-posts, forges, and cinder places, which mark the seats of the ancient manufacture.

[1] WILKINS, Leges Sax. 25.

[2] Life of St. Egwin, in Capgrave's Nova Legenda Anglioe. Alcester was, as its name indicates, an old Roman settlement (situated on the Icknild Street), where the art of working in iron was practised from an early period. It was originally called Alauna, being situated on the river Alne in Warwicks.h.i.+re. It is still a seat of the needle manufacture.

[3] The following is an extract of this curious doc.u.ment, which is dated the 26th Dec. 1352: "Ceste endenture fait entre monsire Richard de Goldesburghe, chivaler, dune part, et Robert Totte, seignour, dautre tesmoigne qe le dit monsire Richard ad graunte et lesse al dit Robert deuz Olyveres contenaunz vynt quatre blomes de la feste seynt Piere ad vincula lan du regne le Roi Edward tierce apres le conqueste vynt sysme, en sun parke de Creskelde, rendant al dit monsire Richard chesqune semayn quatorzse soutz dargent duraunt les deux Olyvers avaunt dist; a tenir et avoir al avaunt dit Robert del avaunt dit monsire Richard de la feste seynt Piere avaunt dist, taunque le bois soit ars du dit parke a la volunte le dit monsire Richard saunz interrupcione [e le dicte monsieur Richard trovera a dit Robert urre suffisaunt pur lez ditz Olyvers pur le son donaunt: these words are interlined]. Et fait a savoir qe le dit Robert ne nule de soens coupard ne abatera nule manere darbre ne de boys put les deuz olyvers avaunt ditz mes par la veu et la lyvere le dit monsire Richard, ou par ascun autre par le dit monsire Richard a.s.signe. En tesmoigaunz (sic) de quenx choses a cestes presentes endentures les parties enterchaungablement ount mys lour seals. Escript a Creskelde le meskerdy en le semayn de Pasque lan avaunt diste."

It is probable that the "blomes" referred to in this agreement were the bloomeries or fires in which the iron was made; and that the "olyveres"

were forges or erections, each of which contained so many bloomeries, but were of limited durability, and probably perished in the using.

[4] The back of a grate has recently been found, cast by Richard Leonard at Brede Furnace in 1636. It is curious as containing a representation of the founder with his dog and cups; a drawing of the furnace, with the wheelbarrow and other implements for the casting, and on a s.h.i.+eld the pincers and other marks of the blacksmith. Leonard was tenant of the Sackville furnace at Little Udimore.--Suss.e.x Archaeological Collections, vol. xii.

[5] For an interesting account of the early iron industry of Suss.e.x see M. A. LOWER'S Contributions to Literature, Historical, Antiquarian, and Metrical. London, 1854.

[6] Archaeologia, vol. x. 472.

[7] One of these, 6 1/2 feet long, and of 2 1/2 inches bore, manufactured in 1543, bears the cast inscription of Petrus Baude Gallus operis artifex.

[8] Mr. Lower says, "Many foreigners were brought over to carry on the works; which perhaps may account for the number of Frenchmen and Germans whose names appear in our parish registers about the middle of the sixteenth century ."--Contributions to Literature, 108.

[9] The embankment and sluices of the furnace-pond at the upper part of the valley continue to be maintained, the lake being used by the present Lord Ashburnham as a preserve for fish and water-fowl.