Note 17 — DOMESTIC LIFE OF THE SAXONS.

The chief iron-works of Sussex were in the Wealden strata, whence the iron ore was extracted from the argillaceous beds, and was smelted with charcoal made from the abundance of wood. At Buxted, near Lindfield, iron ordnance were made three centuries since by Ralph Hogge, assisted by Peter Bawde, a Frenchman, and his covenanted servant, John Johnson; and the memory of whose works, of which two specimens are still existing in the Tower of London, is preserved in

"Master Hogfe, and his man John, They did cast the first can-non." (W. D. Cooper, F.S.A., Archæologia, vol. xxxvii. p. 483.)

Up to 1720, Sussex was the principal seat of the iron manufacture in England: the last furnace, at Ashburnham, was blown out in 1827. Kent was alike noted for its iron; and the last great work of its furnaces was the noble balustrades and gates which surround St. Paul's Cathedral, London: they were cast at Gloucester Furnace, Lamberhurst, and cost upwards of £11,202. "In the middle ages, and down even to a late date, while Dudley and Wolverhampton were obscure names, the forges of Kent and Sussex were all a-glow with smelting and hammering the iron which the soil still yields, although it is not worth the while of any one to work it. The discovery of the coalfields of Wales and Staffordshire gave the Kent and Sussex furnaces their deathblow, leaving the country dotted with forge and furnace farms, and deep holes, now filled with tangled underwood, from which the ore was brought." (Saturday Review, No. 182.) Kent and Sussex have no coal, and the iron manufacture left these counties when smelting with coal or coke began to supersede smelting with charcoal. Iron was also worked in Surrey. John Evelyn, in a letter to John Aubrey, dated February 8, 1675, states, that on the stream which winds through the valley of Wotton "were set up the first brass mills, for casting, hammering into plates, and cutting and drawing into wire, that were in England; also a fulling mill, and a mill for hammering iron, all of which are now demolished." The last of these mills gave its name to a small street or hamlet in the parish of Abinger, which to this day is called the Hammer.—Curiosities of Science. Second Series.