INDUSTRIES 



a variable amount owing to the variable thickness 

 of workable stone. The greatest thickness 

 worked in Northamptonshire is at Duston, 

 close to Northampton, but in a southerly and 

 south-easterly direction from here the iron- 

 stone beds rapidly thin out and disappear (see 

 article Geology, i, 1 6). To the south-west, 

 at Culworth and Towcester, it has been worked 

 a little. In a north-easterly direction, from 

 Northampton to Stamford, workings have been, 

 and are very numerous, where the Northampton 

 sand comes to the surface, or can be got at under 

 a reasonable amount of overburden of other beds, 

 say 1 4 ft. or 15 ft. 



The usual method of getting the ironstone 

 is by long, open workings, the material of the 

 overbearing and all useless stone being thrown on 

 the opposite side of the cutting to the rock face. 

 This waste material is soon levelled and very 

 quickly cultivated, so that there is no great 

 disturbance to the agriculture of the district. 



There is very much ironstone in Northampton- 

 shire below workable depths by open workings. 

 Small attempts have been made to mine the iron- 

 stone by running tunnels underground at Cogen- 

 hoe and Woodford, but the only one conducted 

 on a comparatively large scale is at Slipton, to 

 the west of Thrapston. 



When the ore is smelted m the district it is 

 often calcined before being placed in the furnace, 

 to drive off hygroscopic moisture and further 

 oxidize the green ores. It is considered best to 

 calcine to a brick-red colour only. The yield 

 may vary from 24 to 56 per cent, of metallic 

 iron, but 40 per cent, would be considered good. 



For fluxing the ore the ordinary Great Oolite 



limestone of the district is mostly used, a lime- 

 stone containing something like 90 per cent, of 

 carbonate of lime. Various limestone quarries 

 around where furnaces exist are kept open for 

 this purpose alone. At Kettering they use the 

 Lincolnshire limestone. 



The cinder or slag resulting from the combina- 

 tion of the gangue of the ironstone with the lime 

 of the limestone, andconsisting chiefly of the double 

 silicates of lime and alumina, is used for various 

 purposes : such as road-mending, as ballast on the 

 railway, and at Finedon it is being manufactured 

 into paving sets. 



The Marlstone Iron Ore. — All the preced- 

 ing remarks on ironstone refer to the Northampton 

 sand ore, the only ore now worked for iron in 

 the county, but it may be mentioned that 

 attempts have been made to work the ferruginous 

 Marlstone rock-bed in the extreme south-western 

 parts of the county. Extensive preparations 

 were made in 1874 to work the ore in the parish 

 of King's Sutton by a Company, under the title 

 of ' The Nell Bridge Iron Ore Company.' In 

 the circular issued by the Company the ore is 

 described as purely oolitic, yielding 30 per cent, 

 of metallic iron, and 33 per cent, of lime, the 

 proportion of lime being sufl'icient for the ore to 

 flux itself, and making it especially valuable for 

 mixing with refractory ores. Very little was 

 done, and the quarrying was abandoned.' 



The Great Oolite Ironstone. — Ironstone 

 of good quality is found ^ at the base of the Upper 

 Estuarine beds in the eastern parts of the county, 

 and has been worked a little, but does not pay. 

 The same remark applies to ironstone found in 

 the Great Oolite clay. 



BELL-FOUNDING 



The earliest date on a Northamptonshire 

 church bell is 1317, but it was not until the 

 seventeenth century that there is any evidence 

 of bell-founding within the county. This is 

 first found at Chalcombe, a village three miles 

 north-east of Banbury. The industry was 

 established there by Henry Bagley (or Bagle), 

 about 1632, who used as a trade-mark three 

 bells. He died in 1676, and the foundry was 

 carried on by his two sons Henry and William 

 and a nephew named Matthew. About 1720 

 a second Matthew Bagley, a son of William 

 Bagley succeeded to the foundry, and with his 

 death the foundry at Chalcombe is said to have 

 ended. At Ecton there was established in 

 business another member of the same family born 

 at Chalcombe, Henry Bagley, a son of John 

 Bagley, the brother of the first bell-founder at 

 Chalcombe, and consequently a brother of the 

 first Matthew, the partner of Henry and William. 

 This Henry Bagley of Ecton is first heard of in 



connexion with the casting of the bells of 

 Lichfield Cathedral. In 1700 he cast the 

 present ring of bells at Castor, on the sixth bell 

 ofwhichisthe following inscription : 'I To The 

 Church the Living call, and to the Grave do 

 summon all. Henry Bagley Made Me, 1700.' 

 He was buried in Ecton churchyard on i April, 

 1703, and the business apparently died with 

 him. There was still one more Henry Bagley, 

 a bell-founder, of the Chalcombe Foundry, who 

 was a brother of the second Matthew, and died 

 in 1785. This Henry Bagley we find settled at 

 Witney in Oxfordshire, probably after working for 

 a time in the Chalcombe foundry with Matthew. 

 In 1752 he printed a Catalogue of 'peals of bells 

 . . . and bells cast by Henry Bagley of Chalcombe 

 in the county of Northampton, Bellfounder [who 

 now lives at Witney in Oxfordshire].' 



The first and second bells at Weedon, dated 



' Becby Thompson, Middle Liat of 'Northamptonshire. 

 ' F.C.'H. Northants, i, 18. 



307 



