A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



The third stratum next the Bull upwards is Three 

 foot Pitty that is three foot from the Bottom, of this 

 there are three sorts vizt. The White Veined Pitty, 

 Pitty half White half Gray, the Gray Pitty. 



The White veined Pitty is very good mine 

 especially if it lye deep, about 1 6 foot from the 

 surface and "Sifters from the best mine only in hard- 

 ness, which may be perceived by the touch, and also 

 by the coarseness of the grain which as it appears to 

 the eye finer or harder or more gross makes iron 

 accordingly. 



The half White half Grey Pitty in the same stone 

 is good according as there is more or less White veined 

 in it. 



The Gray Pitty (which I take to be Gray Measure 

 of Mr. Plott) is the hardest and worst of all the 

 Pittys tho it contains as much Iron as any ; but 

 works so very hott and fiery in the Furnace that if 

 they carry too much of it it will tear the Firestones to 

 pieces, and will very often come through the Furnace 

 unmelted. It is apt to be in great quantityes in most 

 places, and as there is more or less of this quantity of 

 mine we judge of the goodness of a vein of mine in 

 generall for where there is much of this and the former 

 sorts already described there is less of the other 

 sorts which come now to be described, which are 

 the best. However some of it must be used in all 

 Iron 



It is unfortunate that the treatise is defective 

 just at the point at which would have begun the 

 description of the best varieties of ore, which 

 were probably the ' mine called veines,' charges 

 for digging which occur in the Waldron accounts 

 of the beginning of the eighteenth century, the 

 lower layers occurring therein as ' marie pitte 

 mine' and ' botom mine.' 33 The method of 

 mining whenever the iron lay at any depth was 

 by means of bell-pits, that is to say, shafts wider 

 at the bottom than at the surface. In good 

 mining each pit would be carried down to the 

 lowest layer of 'mine'; but sometimes only the 

 richer and more accessible layers were taken, and 

 a fresh pit was then started. Thus in 1587 in 

 a dispute between Edward Carrill and Roger 

 Gratwick 34 it was stated that Gratwick's work- 



Take onlie the uppermost veynes of myne which lie 

 fleetest and are most easie to come by and many tymes 

 have left undigged the lower veynes so that the miners 

 of the complainant and others have drawn out of the 

 s d myne pytts to the number of 7 or 800 loads after 

 the defendant's workmen had left digging in the said 

 pittes. 



Moreover, they had 



Lost and spoiled great quantities of myne 

 and ower by suffering the water (by their negligence 

 in not digging the pits deeper) to drown the said 

 myne. 



That is to say water accumulated in the half- 

 worked pits and so prevented access to the lower 



33 Add MS. 33154, fol. 39. 



54 Exch. Dep. by Com. 30 Eliz. Easter, No. 17. 



layers of ore. The natural result of thus using 

 up the more accessible ironstone was that they 

 could not 'find the myne to be so fleete as heretofore 

 it hath don,' and the cost of digging accordingly 

 rose from about 2dd. to 3*. for a load. 35 The 

 general question of the respective rights of the 

 lord of the manor and his tenants to dig iron ore 

 appears to have been doubtful ; but in the case of 

 the manors of Chiltington and Nutbourne we 

 find in 1634 that Lord Abergavenny on two 

 occasions when he had drawn mine for the use 

 of Sir Edward Carrill's furnace at Pallingham had 

 allowed the copyhold tenants on whose lands he 

 had dug 2d. a load ; it is noted at the same time 

 that if the land is dug -for ore the loss is about 

 seven years' profits. 38 



The ore having been ' drawn,' or dug, was 

 subjected to a preliminary calcination, alternate 

 layers of charcoal and ore being laid in a small 

 kiln and burnt sufficiently to enable the ore to 

 be easily broken, but not sufficiently to cause the 

 iron to ' loop,' that is to say, to melt and run 

 into a mass. The furnace being charged with 

 charcoal the broken mine was cast in from above 

 and, slowly melting, fell through into the hearth, 

 from which it was run out into rough moulds of 

 sand, the resulting mass of iron being termed a 

 'sow' if over 1,000 lb., or a 'pig' if under 

 that weight. No Sussex furnace now exists, 

 but in the valley of Cwm Aman in South 

 Wales are the remains of one built by certain 

 iron-masters of the sixteenth century who came 

 from Sussex. 37 Roughly speaking the furnace 

 was a building some 24 ft. square outside, mea- 

 suring about 26 to 30 ft. in height, containing 

 an egg-shaped cavity, at the bottom of which 

 was the hearth of sandstone and the iron vent of 

 the bellows. These latter were at first worked 

 by foot blast, but by the middle of the sixteenth 

 century water power was chiefly used, in all 

 probability. When a furnace had once been lit 

 it was kept burning, sometimes for as long as 

 forty weeks, the period of its blowing being 

 reckoned in ' foundays,' each ' founday ' being 

 six days, that is to say the working week. , 

 During each ' founday ' on an average eight tons 

 of iron would be made at the expense of twenty- , 

 four loads of charcoal (each load being 1 1 quar- 

 ters), and as many loads of mine (at 18 bushels 

 to a load). 38 The great heat of the furnace, 

 which was gradually increased, attaining its 

 maximum about ten weeks after the start, more 

 or less rapidly ate away the sandstone of the 

 hearth, 'so that at first it contains so much as 



36 Ibid. No. 8. 



86 Exch. Dep. by Com. 9 Chas. I, Easter, No. 1 7. 



37 Arch. Cambr. (Ser. 3), ix, 86, where detailed 

 measurements are given. 



ss These figures are for the end of the seventeenth 

 century, and are taken, as is most of this paragraph, 

 from the contemporary account of Walter Burrell of 

 Cuckfield. Suss. Arch. Coll. ii, 200-2. 



244 



