A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



taken for the benefit of the harbours of the said 

 three towns. 98 Complaint was made by the 

 mayor of Rye in 1584 that Lord Montague had 

 been granted a licence, and apparently a mono- 

 poly, of the export of ' Callice billets, a kynde 

 of fuell ofjonge tyme used here and alongest 

 the coast,' to be made of his own wood ; but 

 although his own cut wood had long been ex- 

 hausted he continued to export the billets, selling 

 them at Winchelsea, so that as their sale was 

 prohibited at Rye the traders were resorting to 

 the former town and buying up all the billets, 

 with the result that little fuel came through to 

 Rye, 'and the poor can have none for their 

 money.' Moreover, as they could no longer 

 load up with billets, ships with cargoes of wheat, 

 malt, &c., came no more to discharge at Rye" 

 a fact which points to the export of wood being 

 almost the only trade left to the once prosperous 

 port. The complaint would appear to have 

 caused the prohibition to be withdrawn, as in 

 November, 1589, the mayor of Rye licensed 

 John Allen to carry twenty or thirty thousand 

 billets to Dieppe for the use of the perse- 

 cuted Reformed Church. 100 In 1628, however, 

 the export of billets was again prohibited, and 

 this, combined with the increasing demands of 

 the iron furnaces, the deterioration of the Sussex 

 harbours, the disturbances of the Civil War, and 

 possibly foreign competition, appears to have 

 practically killed the trade in fuel. But though 

 one branch of the timber trade was thus ruined, 

 other branches continued to flourish and make 

 rapid growth, oak timber being in great demand 

 during all periods of naval activity, and especially 

 during the last quarter of the eighteenth century. 

 Writing in 1798, Young said : 



The quantity of oak which has of late years been 

 sent to Portsmouth and other places has exceeded the 

 amount which was transported twenty-five years back 

 in the proportion of four to one. . . . Far greater 

 quantities of oak timber have been lately felled and 

 carried coastwise from Sussex, chiefly to the king's 

 yards, than the country will in future be enabled per- 

 manently to supply. 101 



The industry continued to grow during the 

 nineteenth century, but gradually assumed a 

 double character in face of the expanding Nor- 

 wegian timber trade and the coincident demand 

 for cheap wood, so that the imports of timber 

 have now overwhelmed the exports along the sea 

 coast. There is still, however, a steady demand 

 for Sussex oak for such purposes as plank-fencing 

 and palings, the chief seat of this branch of the 

 industry being round Billingshurst. 102 Oak is 

 also required locally for such purposes as the 



98 Hist. AfSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. pt. iv, 76. 



99 Ibid. 84. 



100 Ibid. 89. 



01 Young, op. cit. 164. 



101 Suss. Industries, 137. 



manufacture of the wattles used so extensively 

 by sheep farmers in East Sussex. 



Wattles consist of four-barred wooden fencing, 

 measuring each 6J feet in length, held together by 

 cross-stays fastened diagonally, and provided with 

 stakes at either end, the pointed feet of which are 

 driven into the ground. 103 



These wattles are also made, in a lighter and 

 cheaper form, of chestnut, but the special use of 

 the latter wood is for hop-poles, for which pur- 

 pose very large numbers were at one time 

 required, 104 though the demand has naturally 

 fallen off lately with the rapidly diminishing area 

 of hops grown in the county. The census re- 

 turns show 87 timber merchants in the county 

 in 1851, 331 timber and wood merchants in 

 1871, and 238 in 1901 ; in connexion with 

 which should be taken the numbers of sawyers 

 in those years, which were respectively 88 1, 

 747, and 503, the fall being no doubt partly due 

 to labour-saving machinery. 



Of the wood industries the most important in 

 Sussex was SHIPBUILDING. The history of this 

 industry has already been dealt with from the 

 naval and political aspect, 105 but here it is neces- 

 sary briefly to trace its economic history. The 

 Sussex builders were evidently expert at their 

 trade by the beginning of the thirteenth century, 

 as in 1231, when repairs were required for the 

 king's ship at Portsmouth, William Wade, a 

 carpenter of Winchelsea, was sent with other 

 carpenters from Shoreham. 106 Repairs to the 

 king's galleys were also carried out at Rye in 

 1252 and the following year, 107 while in 1337 a 

 galley was built, or refitted, at Winchelsea, at a 

 cost of about J ^7O. 108 Other repairs were done 

 to royal ships at the same port in 1352, the 

 accounts of which show that shipwrights received 

 from \d. to 6d. a day, ' castlewrights ' 6<, and 

 sawyers 5^., while men employed in the unskilled 

 labour of cutting a way from the dry-dock to the 

 harbour received 3^. 109 Two balingers of thirty- 

 two oars were built at Rye in I377, 110 and it is 

 possible that one of those who worked upon them 

 was John Wikham, ' schipwrite,' of whom the 

 mayor and barons of Rye testified in 1392 that 

 he had been a worthy freeman of the town for 

 sixteen years while building the ships of that 

 port. 111 A certain amount of shipbuilding was 

 no doubt being carried on at many places along 

 the coast of Sussex, as in 1399 Hugh de Veretot, 

 agent of the abbot of Fecamp, began to build a 

 ship at Pende near Shoreham ; but, as he had 



103 Ibid. 138. 1M Ibid. 132-3. 



105 See ante ' Maritime Hist.' 



106 Close, 15 Hen. Ill, m. 1 6. 

 lor Suss. Arch. Coll. xvii, 123. 



108 Exch. K.R. Accts. bdle. 20, No. 22. 





109 Cooper, Hist, of Winchelsea, 72. 



110 Suss. Arch. Coll. xvii, 1 24. 



111 Hiit. MSS. Com. Rep. v, 500*. 



234 



