NOTES OF AN OLD IRON SMELTING 



mentioned. The name Wheel Birks first occurs when in 1608 

 the three tenants before named, Richardson, Fairnbarne, and 

 Robson, were in occupation. The supposition therefore that 

 the place took its name from the water wheel constructed to 

 work the furnace bellows seems reasonable, and points to this 

 date. And this idea is strengthened by the word never 

 appearing as spelled Huel or Wheal, which are well known 

 Cornish terms for a mine or smelting place; but the 

 strongest testimony pointing to this period as the time 

 of its erection is the internal form of the furnace itself. 

 When excavated ' in 1884 it was plain to see that the 



TVcLterWtiezV 



Fig. 



I, Plan of Old Iron Furnace at Wheel Birks. Only the 

 shaded parts remain. 



small diameter of the furnace bottom was designed for 

 collecting the molten metal, and the enlargement of its 

 waist or " boshes " immediately above this receptacle was a 

 marked feature. It was the invention of this form of furnace 

 — patented by Dudley about 1620 — which made it possible 

 for the first time in history to produce and collect molten iron 

 protected from the air in a quantity sufficient to be run fluid 

 into moulds. An iron fire-place is preserved in Warkworth 

 Castle bearing the date of about this time, and there are other 

 examples of Sussex fire backs dated 1636, and others about the 

 same period — all illustrations of the then new ironfounder's art. 



