270 



vigour quite pleasant to observe. Time has done much for it, but art has done 

 more, until at length the poet's lines descriptive of the good deeds of tho 

 " Kuight of Industi-y " have become fairly appropriate to the work done here : — 



" Nor from this deep retirement banished was 



Th' amusing care of rural Industry : 

 Still as with grateful change the seasons pass, 



New scenes arise, new landscapes strike the eye, 

 And all the enlivened country beautify : 



Gay plains extend where marshes slept before : 

 O'er recent meads th' exulting streamlets fly : 



Dark frowning heaths grow bright with Ceres' store, 

 And woods embrown the steep, or wave along the shore." 



Thomson's Castle of Indolence. 



(See Appendix III. for an account of the Possessors of Whitfield. ) 



APPENDIX I. 



Herefordshire Forges and Furnaces. — The forges or furnaces, 

 ■which were established in the different wooded districts of the county, 

 were called "Glomerys" or " Bloomeries." They were simply an ordinary 

 blacksmith's forge, worked by a foot bellows, and they smelted the ore so very 

 imperfectly that in after years the slag was worked over again, and to such 

 profit, that the heaps of cinders left by the "Bloomeries" have been "sold for 

 much more than the land itself on which they were placed oi'iginally cost"; and 

 the fortunes of some existing families in the county are said to be due to this 

 source. 



The town of Koss is spoken of by Camden as " noted for smiths," a 

 celebrity it has ceased so long to enjoy that it owes to him the credit of it. 



In a paper apparently published officially, in answer to one from the Earl 

 of Kent relating to the rivers "Wye and Lugg, dated "Wormeloe Hundred, 

 Herefordshire, January 29th, 1695," it is stated, "But there are several furnaces 

 and forges for the spending of woods in Herefordshire; as Peterchurch Forge, 

 Strangwood Forge, Llancillo Forge, Pontrilas Forge, St. Wannard Furnace, 

 Bringwood Forge and Furnace," and it then refers to some others. This paper 

 also estimates incidentally the necessary consumption of wood for fuel for a 

 peasant's family at that time as not less in value than 50s. per annum. 



Bringwood Forge. — In 1604 Sir Robert Harley was made Forester of 

 Bringwood alias Bornigwood Forest and Custodian of Prestwood Chase, and its 

 management remained in the hands of the Harley family for many years. The 

 following agreement (1663) has been kindly furnished to the writer by R. "W. 

 B.mks, Esq., of Kington :—" Sir Edward Harley, K.B., and Samuel Baldwin, 

 of the Inner Temple, Esq. , agreed with William Lord Craven for a lease for 21 

 years of the forge and furnace of Bringwood and of several lands theretofore 

 let to Francis Walker, and they afterwards relinquished the agreement in favour 

 of the said Fras. Walker, to whom a lease was granted, and who afterwards 

 assigned the term to his son Richard Walker. By an agreement (10th Sept., 



