Whilst Brian Braby admonished me for having called him ‘an acknowledged expert’, claiming to be neither, I think all of us who listened to his talk last Wednesday were thoroughly engaged and entertained by and with the knowledge and detail that he espoused – and if that isn’t ‘expert’, I don’t know what is!
At the end of his talk whilst I was considering just how I might produce a report to circulate to ‘our readers’ Brian said that when he was giving lectures to U3A etc he would provide notes and offered to send me a copy – which I gladly accepted! I now have a circulation list exceeding 160 and, although we had a really good audience last week it is only about one quarter of the circulation number so I propose to give you a précis of the talk and should you wish to have a copy of the 4 pages of notes with diagrams, please drop me a line and I will send them directly to you.
Brian started his talk by describing the geology of iron ore and its deposits in the clay known as Siderite Mudstone or Clay Ironstone formed from eroded igneous rock thrown up when the world was formed. These layers of clay along with the many other layers were then forced by plate tectonic pressure into the folds and domes that we accept as the mountains, hills and valleys of the world we live in. However, over the millennia rain and rivers and all of the weather that has visited the world – and still does – have also hugely eroded these movements.
Here in the Weald the tectonic pressure pushed the dome upwards with chalk as the top layer and several other layers above the iron carrying deposit. The erosion then slowly took away the layers exposing each of these in turn with the Weald providing important access to the Ironstone layer.
Early man learned to smelt metals in prehistoric times, more than 8000 years ago making an enormous impact on human society and providing the names often used for the development of man from Stone Age and Bronze Age to Iron Age which dates from 750BC to 45AD with iron being made in the Weald from pre-Roman until the beginning of the 19th Century. Its legacy is seen all over our area with a host of place names and house names, local woods and ponds. Many old houses even carry firebacks made locally.
Brian’s notes provide much detail on the production of iron, a significant feature of which is the need for much higher temperatures than bronze, explaining why this is a later technology.
The Romans found a well-established local iron tradition when they invaded Britain, which seems to be the main object of the invasion, that they then took over with the Weald becoming a Roman Imperial Estate. 113 Roman bloomeries – the early name for the basic foundry – have been identified, mainly in East Sussex, one of which we visited at Pippingford Park not long ago.
Several of the local Roman Roads were built for transporting ore linking the Weald to London and were often metaled with slag from iron smelting.
Very little is known of iron production in the early and late Middle Ages although at the end of this period water-power began to be used for forging iron, an extremely tiring process of hammering if done by hand!
The blast furnace was eventually developed during the Tudor & Stuart periods and it is considered that the grassed-over remains of the 15th C Newbridge Furnace ironworks mark the beginnings of this technology with a second one being built at Pippingford in 1500.
Large numbers of people were employed in digging ore, cutting wood, transporting raw materials, making charcoal, operating blast furnaces, operating forges, transporting products etc. etc. Products included cannon, cannon balls, fire-backs, grave slabs, iron rivets, nails, wire, chains, water pipes, nuts, bolts, farm implements, horseshoes, handrails, wagon tires, straps for timber roof trusses, ornamental ironwork etc. etc.
However, in so far as the Wealden iron industry is concerned, the development of coke made from coal as opposed to that made from wood via charcoal, first developed in 1589 at Coalbrookdale in Shropshire, saw the beginning of the end of the local industry. This coke was much more readily available than charcoal and offered a massive increase in production levels resulting in the availability of inexpensive iron and was one of the factors leading to the Industrial Revolution and the end of the Wealden Iron Industry.
