INDUSTRIES 



and Eastbourne, Lewes and Seaford, and Brigh- 

 ton and Kemp Town. 



Sussex possesses several canals which, though 

 at present comparatively neglected, may possibly 

 in the near future recover something of their 

 former value. The most important of these are 



in conjunction with the River Arun, which is 

 connected with Chichester Harbour and Ports- 

 mouth by the Arundel and Portsmouth Canal, 

 with Petworth and Midhurst by the West Rother 

 Canal, and with the Wey by the Arun and Wey 

 Canal, now practically disused. 



IRON 1 



There can be little doubt that Caesar's state- 

 ment that iron was produced in the maritime 

 regions of Britain, though only in small quantities, 

 refers to the Weald of Sussex as well as, if not 

 exclusive of, other districts along the coast. Cir- 

 cumstantial evidence of the early working of the 

 mineral wealth of Sussex was produced by Pro- 

 fessor Boyd Dawkins in 1862, when he found a 

 rude type of pottery and some flint flakes on the 

 top of, and therefore evidently of later date than, 

 a slag heap in Battle parish. 2 This points to the 

 smelting of iron in the county at a period when 

 metal had not entirely replaced the earlier instru- 

 ments of the Stone Age. For the period of the 

 Roman occupation we have ample evidence of 

 the activity of the iron works ; at Maresfield 

 large quantities of Samian ware were found in 

 the beds of ' cinders ' (i.e. metallic slag), when 

 they were dug for road metal. 3 Roman coins 

 were also found here and in similar cinder heaps 

 at Sedlescombe, Westfield,'* and Beauport, near 

 Battle. 6 From the fact that the coins found at 

 Maresfield were principally those of Vespasian 

 (died A.D. 69), though some ranged as late as 

 Diocletian (286), and that coins of Trajan and 

 Hadrian (A.D. 138) were found at Reauport in 

 fine condition, pointing to a short length of cir- 

 culation, it is evident that the Sussex ironworks 

 date from an early period of the Roman occupa- 

 tion. An examination 6 of this cinder mound at 

 Beauport, and one of similar date near Brede, 

 suggests a very elementary knowledge of smelting 

 and the use of primitive methods, which is further 

 borne out by the richness of the cinders in iron. 



1 The Suss. Arch. Coll. contain much matter relating 

 to the iron industry ; vols. ii and iii having good lists 

 of forges and their owners ; xiii a good early inventory, 

 and later inventories in xxiv and xxxii ; xlvi, descrip- 

 tions and illustrations of a large number of iron articles 

 of local manufacture, for which see also ii, and Archato- 

 hgia, Ivi, pt. i. The accounts for the works at Worth 

 in i 548 are of much interest (Exch. K.R. Accts. bdle. 

 501, No. 3), as are those of the Waldron and Bright- 

 ling works, extending from 1628-1730 (Add. MSS. 



33I54- 6 )- 



* Suss. Arch. Coll. xlvi, 2. 



3 Ibid, ii, 171-3. 4 Ibid. 174. 



5 Ibid, xxix, 173. The most interesting object 

 found in the Beauport mound is a small Roman statue- 

 ette of good execution, particularly valuable from its 

 being of cast iron, the use of which amongst the 

 Romans had hitherto been unknown ; ibid, xlvi, 4-5. 



6 Ibid, xxix, 169-72. 



Apparently a hearth of charcoal was first laid, on 

 this a layer of the ' mine,' or ore, was placed, and 

 a layer of clay put over the whole to retain the 

 heat, the iron running out at the foot of the 

 mound ; and this process was repeated, each set 

 of layers being placed upon its predecessor, with 

 the result of eventually forming a regularly strati- 

 fied mound, with a maximum height of about 

 50 ft. in the case of the Beauport heap. 



It is remarkable that an industry so well esta- 

 blished in a spot so well supplied with the raw 

 material of ore and fuel, and one moreover so 

 valuable for a warlike race, should have been 

 completely overthrown by the Saxons, but such 

 appears to have been the case, for documentary 

 and circumstantial evidence is alike lacking for 

 any workings of iron by the Saxons in Sussex. 

 Moreover, the Domesday Survey makes no men- 

 tion of such renders of iron as occur in its account 

 of Gloucestershire or Somerset, and merely men- 

 tions the existence of one iron-mine (ferrarla) 

 in the hundred of East Grinstead. 7 It would 

 seem that for some two centuries after the Con- 

 quest, the monopoly of iron production in southern 

 England was practically in the hands of the 

 miners of the Forest of Dean and that neigh- 

 bourhood. The extensive demands for iron 

 occasioned by the Crusades, and by building 

 operations at Winchester and elsewhere, 8 do not 

 seem to have galvanized the Sussex ironworks into 

 life, and as late as about 1225, that excellent 

 man of business, Simon de Senliz, the bishop of 

 Chichester's steward, advised his master about pro- 

 curing iron from Gloucestershire, with no sugges- 

 tion of the possibility of obtaining it locally. 9 It 

 would appear, however, that by the middle of the 

 thirteenth century, the industry was beginning to 

 revive, as in 1253 l ' le sner 'ff ^ Sussex was 

 ordered to send 12,000 nails to Freemantle for 

 the roofing of the hall, and next year he had to 

 supply 30,000 horse-shoes and 60,000 nails. 10 A 

 few mines and ironworks were evidently in exis- 

 tence, but apparently little valued or used, for in 

 1263, when the right to a third part of a mine 

 of iron in East Grinstead was disputed between 

 Agnes wife of Nicholas Malemeins, and Isabel 

 wife of Thomas de Audeham, it was stated that 

 during the life of Isabel's first husband, Ralf de la 



' V.C.H. Sussex, i, 367. 



8 See article on ' Mining,' in V.C.H. Glouc. ii. 



' Roy. Let. (Rolls Ser.), i, 278. 



10 Suss. Arch. Coll. xvii, 1 1 7, from Lib. Rolls. 



241 



