272 



The Llandinabo Forge, or Furnace, affords a marked example of a com- 

 plete change ia tlie character of a district. Its very name lias passed into oblivion. 

 In the middle of an open arable field near the little church of Llandinabo, — 

 from wliich over a wide expanse of country, looking west, every thicket, four- 

 fifths of the hedges, and almost every tree has been grubbed away, and the whole 

 district given up to the plough, there is a portion of ground, consisting of 

 several acres, to this day distinguished by the title of "The Furnaces." Not a 

 vestige meets the eye, even by the usual telltale mounding of the earth, to 

 explain the name which thus capriciously distinguishes an uninclosed and 

 otherwise unmarked spot. But on looking closely into the soil underfoot, an 

 ample explanation of the traditional title reveals itself. Innumerable masses 

 of fiu-nace slag and half smelted iron ore, from the size of a man's two fists 

 down to that of a walnut, lie amongst the clods, at first undistinguishable 

 owing to the coating they have acquired of the red soil of the field, but so 

 thickly mixed with it as to be sensibly felt by the foot, and by the additional 

 ■weight and toughness of the furrow-slice as the plough passes over that part of 

 the field. An ancient road now entirely obliterated, but existing in the recol- 

 lection of the writer, passed through the field dividing it in two, close by "The 

 Furnaces." The spot is itself the apex of an angle made by two roads — the 

 one leading towards the Forest of Dean, and the other towards Gloucester and 

 London. The district in question is spoken of in Domesday book as having been 

 a dense forest waste. Judged by the remains, the smelting works must have 

 been extensive. And here in a wide smooth tillage field with others equally bare 

 around it as far as eye can reach, must once have been a busy mid-forest scene 

 of smoke and glare and noise in all its picturesque wildness. Truly the face of 

 mother earth witnesses some strange mutations. 



APPENDIX II. 



1. — Serjeant Hosktns and the Personages mentioned in his Letteb, 



Amongst the characters who figured in the reign of James I., few en- 

 joyed a wider reputation amongst their contemporaries than Serjeant 

 Hoskyns. A good scholar, a clever lawyer, ready in speech, and bold withal, he 

 could neither fail to be a man of mark himself, nor to incur the risk which 

 distinguished talents brought down upon all who possessed them in those 

 tyrranical times. In 1614 the national feeling ran strongly against the intrusion 

 of the King's Scottish followers and favourites into all the offices of the state, 

 and it found an uncompromising exponent in the member for Hereford. 



Serjeant Hoskyns represented the City of Hereford for many years. He 

 was returned in the Ist and 2nd Parliaments of James I. 1603 and 1613. 

 In his place in the House of Commons he was amongst the foremost to 

 denounce the conduct of the Court. In a speech of great boldness and daring, 

 he even hesitated not to aUude to the "Sicilian Vespers," as the great political 

 ■lassacre of 12S0 was called. (Frenchmen had then been thrust into all State 



