A HISTORY OF SURREY 



cast any more until express direction should 

 be received from the Council. Letters to the 

 like purport were apparently sent at the same 

 time to the lords lieutenant of Sussex and 

 Kent.' On 3 August of the following year 

 the same three lords lieutenant were again 

 written to, when the Council complained of 

 the little regard the owners of furnaces and 

 makers of ordnance had of the bonds they had 

 entered into, and requested that the justices of 

 the peace should be directed to take an inven- 

 tory of the ordnance at the several works 

 and see that no more be cast for the present.* 

 The three lords, thus addressed, apparently 

 reported to the Council that there were 

 several owners of furnaces, who had before 

 the Council's letters of inhibition made iron 

 only and no ordnance, but that now, seeing 

 themselves at liberty and not bound as the 

 rest, had converted their furnaces to the 

 making of ordnance. Whereupon on 3 

 October 1590 the Council again wrote to 

 them, this time to require that the bonds 

 should be taken of all who had furnaces or 

 should afterwards erect them in their respec- 

 tive counties.^ The reign was drawing to a 

 close when on 5 April 1602 the policy, 

 which had been maintained throughout it, 

 was further enunciated by a series of orders 

 differing only in minor points of detail fi-om 

 those of 1574.* In them however we may 

 note that the one furnace specifically men- 

 tioned is said to be near Cardiff, a convenient 

 port for shipment of the ordnance to Spain. 

 This furnace may have been in or on the 

 borders of the Forest ot Dean, and thus pos- 

 sibly we have an indication of the district, 

 which a study of the State Papers of the next 

 two reigns would tend to prove was gradually 

 to dispute with the Weald its supremacy in 

 the industry.' 



Whilst the government was thus endeav- 

 ouring to allay the fears which were aroused 

 in one respect by the too great development 

 of the industry, the legislative had in the 

 meantime not lost sight of those other dangers 

 which had first provoked interference. The 

 Act I Elizabeth, cap. 15, for the preservation 

 of timber was followed by that of 23 Eliza- 

 beth, cap. 5, entitled, 'An Acte towching 



1 Acts ofP.C. xvi. 326, and Loseley MSS. (Hist 

 MSS. Com. Rep. FII. App. 645). 

 s Jets ofP.C. xviii. 7-8. 

 ^ Ibid. XX. 5. 



* S. P. Dom. Eliz. cclxxxiii. 73. 



* See the paper by Lower, Suss. Arch. Coll. 

 xviii. 10 seq., which shows that the migration of 

 Sussex ironinasters into Glamorganshire and south 

 Wales had commenced as early as the reign of 

 Henry \'III. 



266 



yron milles neere unto the Cittie ot London 

 and the Ry ver of Thames.' ° Here for the first 

 time the policy of putting a check upon the in- 

 crease in the number of works found expression 

 in an Act of Parliament. The exceptions to the 

 enactment are however important. It is 

 expressly stated that the Act was not to extend 

 to any w^oods growing in any such parts of 

 the Wealds of Surrey, Sussex and Kent 

 within the said 22 miles of London and the 

 Thames as are distant above 18 miles 

 from the city and 8 miles from the Thames. 

 Further the woods and underwoods growing 

 upon the lands of Christopher Darrell in the 

 parish of Newdigate within the Weald of 

 Surrey were especially exempted, because 

 they had been preserved and coppiced by him 

 for the use of his iron works in those parts. 



Either this Act and the previous one proved 

 insufficient to meet the difficulty or they met 

 with but scant regard, for four years later 

 another Act dealing with the same question 

 was passed, the Act namely of 27 Elizabeth, 

 cap. 19. This is entitled, 'An Act for the 

 preservacion of tymber in the Wildes of the 

 Counties of Sussex, Surrey and Kent, and for 

 the Amendment of High Wales decaied by 

 carriage to and fro Iron Mylles there.' ^ 



• In the preamble of this attention is drawn to 

 the recent erection of sundry iron-mills not far 

 distant from the city and suburbs of London, 

 from the Downs, and from the sea-coast of Sussex, 

 and to the consequent scarcity and unreasonable 

 prices of timber for the purposes of building and 

 fuel. The Act prohibits the conversion to coal or 

 fiiel for the making of iron of any wood or under- 

 wood growing within 22 miles of London and its 

 suburbs or of the Thames from Dorchester down- 

 wards and within certain defined limits of Sussex, 

 under a penalty of 40X. for every load of wood so 

 employed. No new ironworks were to be erected 

 within 22 miles of London, 14 of the Thames 

 and 4 of the Downs upon pain of ^^ 100. 



' The Act again draws attention to the 

 threatened exhaustion of the timber supplies of 

 the Weald. The prohibition to erect any new 

 iron-mills, ftirnaces, fineries or bloomeries has now 

 the first place of importance. Exception is 

 allowed in such cases where the new mills should 

 be erected upon old bays or pens where at the 

 time some old iron-mills happened to be standing, 

 and also where the owner was prepared to frirnish 

 his mills with a sufficient supply of his own wood. 

 Timber trees of the breadth of i square foot at 

 the stub were not to be converted into coals. The 

 penalty for the erection of every new mill con- 

 trary to the provisions of this Act was raised to 

 ;^30o, and for every tree converted to fuel 40/. 

 Tops and ' of&ls ' of trees could be used for fuel 

 for ironworb in places not within the limits 

 defined in the previous Act, namely vrithin 18 

 mUes of London, 8 of the Thames, etc. 



