Wealden iron industry

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The Wealden iron industry is the result of a combination of the natural materials being available for the making of iron. Those raw materials are:

ironstone
fuel in the form of wood charcoal, usually from woods managed as coppices.
power in the form of streams which could be dammed back into ponds to give enough water-force to work a waterwheel.

All were found in abundance on the Weald in southeast England, and the medieval iron-making industry took full advantage of them.

A thousand years before, however, the Romans had made full use of the brown- and ochre-coloured stone in the Cranbrook-Tunbridge Wells area, and many of their roads there are the means of transport for the ore. In 1300, mention is made of iron-smelting at Tudeley.

A new smelting process involving a blast furnace and finery forge was introduced in about 1490 at Queenstock in Buxted parish. In early 16th century ironworks existed at Cowden, Ashurst, Tonbridge, Brenchley, Horsmonden, Lamberhurst, Goudhurst, Cranbrook, Hawkhurst, and Biddenden. The number of ironworks increased greatly from about 1540.

Waterpower was the means of operating the bellows in the furnaces and for operating bellows and helve hammers in finery forges. Scattered through the Weald are ponds still to be found called ’Furnace Pond’ or ’Hammer Pond’. The iron was used for making household utensils, nails and hinges; and for casting cannon.

The industry was at its peak towards the end of Queen Elizabeth I's reign. Most works were small, but at Brenchley one ironmaster employed 200 men. Most of them would have been engaged in mining ore and cutting wood (for charcoal), as the actual ironworks only required a small workforce. The wars fought during the reign of Henry VIII increased the need for armaments, and the Weald became the centre of an armaments industry. In particular, iron cannon were cast in the Weald from about 1540.

In the 16th century and the early 17th century, the Weald was a major source of iron for manufacture in London, but after 1650, the Weald became increasingly focused on the production of cannon and bar iron was only produced for local consumption. This decline may have begun as early as the 1610s, when Midland ironware began to be sold in London. Certainly after Swedish iron began to be imported in large quantities after the Restoration, Wealden bar iron seems to have eben unable to compete in the London market.

Cannon production was a major activity in the Weald until the end of the Seven Years' War, but a cut in the price paid by the Board of Ordnance drove several Wealden ironmasters into bankruptcy. They were unable to match the much lower price that was acceptable to the Scottish Carron Company, whose fuel was coke. A few ironworks continued operating on a very small scale. The last to close was the forge at Ashburnham. With no local source of mineral coal Wealden iron industry was unable to compete with the new coke-fired ironworks of the Industrial Revolution.