THE ANCIENT INDUSTRIES OF CANNOCK CHASE. 136 
in the British Museum which contain the pay sheets and manage- 
ment accounts of Queen Elizabeth’s mines, both the cost of digging 
iron ore and the cutting and coaling of the wood. It is there stated 
that to make 100 tons of iron required the consumption of no less 
than 3,000 cords of wood, which at 2s.acord produced a sum of 
£300 per annum for every 100 tons of iron smelted. Queen 
Elizabeth’s agent lived, it is said, in Rugeley, in a house opposite 
the Shrewsbury Arms, now converted into the Post Office, the same 
house where was enacted 50 years ago the tragedy which made 
Rugeley better known than anything else which ever happened there 
—the Palmer murder. There is a tradition that Queen Elizabeth her- 
self once stayed a night in the house. Coal was sent from Beaudesert 
Park to the Castle of Tutbury during the time that Mary Queen of 
Scots remained there in 1584. At about the time of the Spanish 
Armada a Report was drawn up showing what timber was available 
in England to meet the demand occasioned by the building of new 
ships for the Navy. It was then officially stated that ‘‘ Canke Wood 
“ being far from the sea or navigable river, the timber there cannot 
* be employed for ship building, but that it was most fit to be conver- 
“ted to iron works.” Later,an Inquisition or Court of Survey was 
held at Cannock in 1595, when certain Commissioners reported at 
length on the Manors of Cannock and Rugeley, as follows: ‘ There is 
“one myne of black coals and another myne of cannil coals within the 
“ Cank Wood, wich mynes Gilbert Wakeringe, Esq., hath and holdeth. 
“by Lease; and that there hath been ironstone gotten in the same: 
‘‘ woode in a certain place called the Black myne, wich ironstone Mr, 
“ Fowlke Greville farmeth of her Majestie.” The Report goes on to- 
state that great waste of timber had taken place, and that of the 3,123 
acres of wood at the time Mr. Greville’s lease was granted there then 
remained only 780 acres. The Commissioners brought serious 
charges against Mr. Greville, not only for cutting down a great 
number of trees not belonging to him, but also because he had fallen 
a number of hollies which were specially reserved in his lease. It 
seems that at that time, when pasture was scarce, holly trees were 
