A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



localities, are evidence of a former active iron 

 industry. The local ores, however, have long 

 been replaced by imported Jurassic ores from 

 Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, and Northampton- 

 shire. The former consisted chiefly of ' rakes,' 

 or rows of ironstone nodules. Honeycroft, 

 Civilly, and Dale Moor, or Hagg Rake, were 

 ' rakes' much in request in the Stanton district. 40 

 Iron is also present in the county in the form of iron 

 pyrites, of which 205 tons were raised in 1907, 

 valued at j82. 41 There are seven blast furnaces 

 in Nottingham, with an average of five in blast 

 during the year. At Bennerley (Awsworth), 

 Ilkeston, there are three, owned by Mr. E. P. 

 Davis, whilst at Bestwood, Nottingham, four 

 are worked by the Bestwood Coal and Iron 

 Company, Ltd. 42 The pig iron production of 

 Nottinghamshire is included in the returns for 

 Derbyshire. 



There was, in Deering's opinion, a sufficient 

 quantity of coal and iron ore forthcoming in the 

 county to induce ' plenty of all sorts of work- 

 men in iron to settle here, especially saddlers, 

 ironmongers, and husbandry implement makers.' 43 

 The lorimers were a fairly numerous craft in 

 ancient times, the name and the trade being 

 frequently identical. William de Holm held a 

 tenement in the Lorimers' Street (View Lorimer- 

 ioruni) at an early date. 44 In 1578 evidence is 

 forthcoming that the ironworker was not per- 

 mitted to exercise his craft without being pre- 

 viously apprenticed to the same, Thomas Nix 

 being presented by the Mickletorn jury for 

 ' exercising the craft mystery or manual occupa- 

 tion of an ironmonger of small-made wares,' 

 such as nails, horse-shoes, ploughslips, shivers, 

 spade shoes, hatchets, cart-clouts, wain-clouts, 

 brandreths, and irons. A fine of 22 having 

 been inflicted, Nix ' after comes, and acknow- 

 ledges he will not further meddle with the sale 

 of such wares.' 45 



By the i6th century the Lorimers' Street of 

 mediaeval times had become Bridlesmithgate, 

 of which an anonymous writer of an account 

 of Nottingham at the former date says that 



Bridle Smith and Gridle Smith Gates were so called 

 no doubt by reason of the store of smiths then 

 dwelling therein who made bits, snaffles, and other 

 stuffs for bridles, of which trade there are some still 

 inhabiting that street, though the greater number be 

 worn out by smiths of a rougher stamp, such as make 



40 S. Derb. and Notts. Coalfield, 1908, p. 90. 

 "Mines and Quatrics, 1907, pt. iii, p. 214. In 



1908 the production was slightly less, 192 tons. 



41 Ibid. 1907, pt. iii, 207. 



43 Deering, Nottinghamia, 92. 



44 Stevenson, Rec. Bon. Nott. \, 131, 293-4, 367, 



435- 



45 Ibid, iv, 51. It was a curiosity of the iron- 

 mongers' trade of Nottingham that they were also 

 the chief purveyors offish. Deering, Nottinghamia, 97. 

 The smiths' quarter in Nottingham was that known 

 as Vicus Magnorum Fabrorum ; Rec. Boro. Nott. \, 440. 



plough irons, coulter shares, stroke and nails, harrow 

 teeth and the like, of which trade there are at this 

 day such store in this street and other parts of the 

 town as serve to furnish not only this city of Notting- 

 ham, but divers other bordering shires, as Leicester, 

 Rutland, and Lincolnshire, the reason of which 

 number I suppose to be the great plenty of coals got 

 and the great plenty of iron made in these parts. 46 



Barnaby Wartnaby, the founder of Wartnaby's 

 Hospital in 1665, was a wealthy ironworker of 

 the 1 7th century. His burial at St. Mary's is 

 recorded in the parish registers 16 November, 

 i6y2. 47 



The author of a Tour in the Midlands in 1772 

 speaks of an ironwork at Carburton, adding that 

 there was one other disused at a site near Not- 

 tingham. ' These forges,' he adds, ' are scat- 

 tered about at a distance from the mines, where 

 the ore is raised, for the convenience of easily 

 obtaining charcoal, to supply them, and perhaps 

 because the metal, when brought hither, is on 

 the way to water-carriage.' 48 Iron ore has been 

 found in the alluvium, near Bleasby. 49 



Richard, the parchment-maker of Newark, 

 would seem to have been one of the earliest 

 purveyors of writing material in the county, for 

 in 1371 we find him supplying eighty-four dozen 

 of parchment for the king's use at 3*. a dozen, 

 at a cost of 12 12s. A second account was 

 for sixty dozen. The trade, Mr. Brown sug- 

 gests, must have been a lucrative one, as twenty 

 rolls of parchment were used for the trade pleas 

 alone at Nottingham every year. 60 There was 

 a mill 'of very ancient date ' 61 at Bollom, where 

 glazed pressing boards were made, also glazed, 

 shop, and other papers. 82 At Welham brown 

 paper was formerly made at a mill previously 

 used for grinding bones. 53 The Epperstone 

 Paper-mill, worked by the Dover Beck and 

 owned in the early part of the igth century by 

 Mr. W. Forster, was burnt down in 1828, but 

 rebuilt shortly afterwards. 64 Mr. Horatio Nelson 

 had a paper-mill at Retford in 1794." At the 

 present time the industry is carried on at Lowd- 

 ham, near Nottingham, by the Epperstone 

 Company, who manufacture Jacquards and 

 other middlings, filtering, fly, and absorbent 

 papers, and by Ben Haigh, of the Albert Mills, 

 Retford, where browns, caps, middles, and Royal 

 Whites are produced. 86 



The earliest existing specimen of Nottingham 

 printing, according to Mr. Briscoe, is a pamphlet, 

 now included in the Nottinghamshire collection 



48 Thoroton Soc. Tram, i, 34. 



47 Ward, Notes on St. Mary's Reg. 35. 



48 Op. cit. 88. 



49 Aveline, Geol. Notts. 2 1 . 



60 Brown, Hist. Newark, 1 8 8. 



" Curtis, Tofog. Hist. Notts. 33. 



" White, Notts. 735. " Ibid 



64 Curtis, op. cit. 94. 



" Piercy, Hist. Retford, 10. 



w Papermaker? Dir. 1908, p. 107. 



3 22 



