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fallen to a very low ebb, for Domesday Book, that exhaustive 

 and invaluable record compiled after the Norman Conquest, 

 contains no mention of it. However, there is a record in Lewes 

 going back to the year 1266, stating the amount then to be paid 

 on every load of iron brought into the town. To those who read 

 the evidence, Mr. Lewis said, it was perfectly plain that this 

 referred either to wrought iron or to pig-iron brought in on 

 purpose to be worked. 



The re-discovery of the art of casting iron was practically 

 a modern invention. The trade seems to have been revived in 

 the Fourteenth Century by the finding out of a method of 

 melting the metal and running it into moulds. The discovery, 

 which Mr. Lewis thought was probably due to an accident 

 similar to that which led to the discovery of glass, was not, he 

 said, proved to have been made in Sussex. However, as the 

 English under Edward III. were the first people mentioned as 

 users of cannon in war, it was reasonable to suppose that they 

 were the first to cast iron shot. 



An interesting part of the lecture was that dealing with the 

 manufacture of the early cannon in Sussex. The first cannon 

 cast in one piece was made, Mr. Lewis said, by a Sussex man 

 with the characteristic Sussex name of Hogg, at the village of 

 Buckstead. About the middle of the Sixteenth Century many 

 names of Frenchmen and Germans are found in our County 

 Parish Registers. These men, the Lecturer thought, probably 

 came to Sussex to study the art of iron castmg. There was a 

 famous furnace at Lamberhurst. Comparatively few people 

 were aware that the fine railings round St. Paul's Churchyard 

 were cast at this same Sussex furnace at Lamberhurst. They 

 are the greatest existing remains of the Sussex iron industry. 

 Their weight, including the seven gates, is about 200 tons, and 

 it is said that they compose, perhaps, the most magnificent 

 balustrade in the world. They cost £11,202. But the Lamber- 

 hurst foundry was not always such a patriotic institution. Some 

 of the cannon cast in it were smuggled from the seashore for use 

 in French privateers, until such infamous traffic came to the 

 knowledge of the authorities. One of the old Sussex cannon 

 was shown in the illustrations, — a rude iron cylinder bound 

 round and round for half its length, and supported on a couple 

 of wooden beams, a curious embryo of the finished modern 

 engines of destruction. 



In the Sixteenth Century the Sussex ironworkers began to 

 turn their attention to ornamental work for interiors. To this 

 period belong the fire-backs and tire-dogs to be seen in many of 

 the old country houses. The Lecturer had received from Mr. 

 Henry \YiUett the loan of the only known Sussex fire-back 

 pattern now existing. He showed it to his audience, who were 



