ON;THE ANTIQUITY OF THE IRON-MINES OF THE WEALD. 853 
near Wells, Worle Hill near Weston-super-Mare, Brent-knowle in Somerset, and Pensel- 
wood on the Somerset border of Wilts. 
The first historical notice of the Wealden ironfield is to be found in the grant of 
Henry III. to the town of Lewes after the battle, of a toll of one penny on every cart 
laden with iron. From that time there is evidence that the iron trade gradually became 
of more and more importance. Tombstones, horse-shoes, tires for wheels, and andirons 
were the staple manufactures. The first cannon cast in England was made at Buxted, in 
1543, a hamlet about two miles from the beautiful little town of Uckfield ; and it created 
such an interest at the time, that the names of the founders are still handed down by 
tradition. Ralph Hogge, or Hog, was the ironmaster, and Hugget was the founder; the 
furnace in which it was cast was Hugget’s furnace. 
“Master Hugget and his man John, 
They did cast the first cannon.” 
The first mortar also made in this country was made at Eridge Green. Fuller bears 
testimony to the importance of the gun-manufacture in his time. “ It is almost in¬ 
credible,” he writes, “how many great guns are made of iron in this county (Sussex).” 
In the seventeenth century it reached its most prosperous stage; and so important were 
the ironworks considered in the Civil War of 1643, that all those belonging to the crown, 
or to royalists, in West Sussex were destroyed. Up to the end of the seventeenth cen¬ 
tury the iron trade continued to flourish, and even in 1724 it was considered in Sussex, 
according to Mr. Lower, the chief interest in the county. At the beginning, however, 
of the eighteenth century, a cause which had frequently been felt before, and provided 
against by many legal enactments, made itself seriously known,—the scarcity of fuel for 
the smelting of the iron. As far back as the year 1543, an order was issued that no 
wood should be turned into pasture. After this date the growing scarcity of wood was 
again and again brought before the notice of Government, but to no purpose. Nearly 
all the large timber trees had already been cut down in the great Wealden forest, until 
at last the increased cost of the Charcoal compelled the Wealden ironmasters to shut up 
their works. Some of them, indeed, during the reign of Henry VIII., had already 
migrated to South Wales, where they founded the extensive ironworks at Aberdare 
and Merthyr Tydfil.. The iron-foundries of South Wales, therefore, may be considered 
in part the offspring of those in the Weald. The decline rapidly went on during the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and was very much accelerated by the Civil Wars. 
“In 1653 there were twenty-seven furnaces in Sussex, of which ten were abandoned 
before 1664, and partly ruined, but repaired and stopped on account of the war and 
hopes of encouragement, seven ruined and not rebuilt,” and there were also “ forty-two 
forges, of which nineteen were ruined before 1664, and so remain; five laid aside, and 
eighteen continue in hopes of encouragement.” This return is taken from the transcript 
of a paper found at Horsham, and published by Mr. Lower in the Sussex archaeological 
collections. Thus there is clear evidence that within eleven years at least one half of 
the iron trade had left the Weald. The furnaces after this became fewer and fewer: in 
1740 they were reduced to ten, in 1788 to two, and in 1796 there was only one forge 
left in Sussex, at Ashburnham, near Battle, which furnished 173 tons of iron in that 
year. Thus, gradually, during the latter half of the eighteenth century, the black 
forges of Sussex crumbled away, the sterile ash-heaps became overgrown with green 
moss and long rank grass, the ground covered with impenetrable thickets of blackthorn, 
hazel, ash, and alder, and the rude clang sounded less and less frequent, until in 1825 
that of Ashburnham became silent, and the iron-mines of the Weald were abandoned. 
By far the greater number of the mine-pits were doubtless made during the 600 years 
of which we have given an outline, from the time of Henry III. downwards, but some 
of them can be carried back at least as far as the Roman occupation of Britain. Thus, 
in 1844, Samian and other Roman ware, a bronze fibula, and other objects undoubtedly 
Roman, were found by the Rev. Edward Turner in a mass of scoriae, covering an area of 
from six to seven acres, to a depth of from 2 to 10 ft., in the parish of Maresfield, near 
Uckfield. Among other objects were coins of Nero (a.d. 64 and 68), Vespasian (69 and 
79), Tetricus (274), Diocletian (234-236). The predominance of the coins of Vespasian 
leads Mr. Lower to the conclusion that the works were in operation in the time of that 
emperor, or his successor Titus. From the admixture also of coins of different dates, 
the long continuance of the works may be fairly inferred. Similar discoveries of coins 
