42 EOYAL CHASE OF SHIELOT. 



wood was required for smelting, it is only reason- 

 able to look for them. Historical records and 

 monastic writings, as well as old tenures, traditions, 

 and heaps of slag, tell us that iron had been manu- 

 factured in the midst of these woods from very- 

 remote periods. As far back as 1250, a notice 

 occurs of a right of road granted by Philip de Bent- 

 hall, Lord of Benthall, to the monks of Buildwas, 

 over all his estate, for the carriage of stone, coal, 

 and timber ; and in an old work in the Deer Leap, 

 very primitive wooden shovels, and wheels flanged 

 and cut out of the solid block, and apparently 

 designed to bear heavy weights, were found a short 

 time since, which are now in possession of Mr. Thurs- 

 field, of Barrow, together with an iron axletree 

 and some brass sockets, two of which have on them 

 "P. B.," being the initials of Philip Benthall, or 

 Philip Burnel, it is supposed, the latter having suc- 

 ceeded the former. At Linley, and the Smithies, 

 traces of old forges occur ; so that there is good 

 reason for supposing that knives and other articles 

 of iron may have been manufactured in the district 

 from a very early period. Among the assets, for 

 instance, of the Priory of Wenlock, in the year 

 1541-2, is a mine of ironstone, at Shirlot, formed for 



