Cannons in the Weald

On a clear, crisp and very cold last Sunday morning where the temperature didn't get above 3C/38f, we set off with hats and gloves to find the iron making foundries in the High Weald of East Sussex. The ground was still a little icy in places under the trees and not too muddy in others, the footpaths were clearly marked and only once missed a marker and had to retrace our steps.

It is difficult to believe today that this Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty was the industrial heartland of England with many Iron making foundries 500 years ago in the Tudor age. The evidence is there to be discovered with place names like Huggets Furnace farm and Little Forge. The latter operated for over a hundred years from 1560 to 1667.

Making iron in the High Weald was very efficient because all the elements to make iron were there and still are. Walking through the hilly countryside, pausing for a moment when we came across a herd of deer and later on a couple of wild boars in the woods, we found a large number of Hammer ponds flowing into Ghylls. A Ghyll is a steep sided fast flowing stream with exposed sandstone. The sandstone contains the iron ore, we know this because the surface of the stone is rusty. The stone was quarried and only had to be transported a short distance to the foundry.

The Ghyll provided the motive power for the mill wheels that in turn operated the bellows and the hammers in the furnaces. The charcoal to fuel the furnaces was provided by the Chestnut coppices that are on a 7 year harvest cycle and still are. We came across a chap preparing a charcoal burning fire alongside a hammer pond, a skill practiced since Roman times in this area.

The first blast furnace was used in England at Ashdown forest in 1496 and in 1543 the first iron cannon was successfully cast from a clay mould in one piece at Buxted by father and son Ralph and John Hogge. These cannons were much stronger and safer than the previous guns made in sections and held together by bands and therefore Sussex cannons were able to corner the market. There is a small 16th century cannon in Mayfield village High Street that was recovered from the remains of the Mayfield furnace in 1864.

It can be said that all the cannons for Henry VIII's navy were cast in the High Weald and the guns that defeated the Spanish Armada were forged in the heart of Sussex.

Our walk also passed by a number of WWII pill boxes, small squat concrete and brick buildings sited in the woods and fields along the way, these were built to fight any German invasion of Britain in 1940.

After 3 and half hours we got back to the car a little tired and rosy cheeked from the cold but very satisfied to have found so much local history.


http://www.tudorhistorytours.com/