What their recent state of prosperity had been, Andrew Yarranton, in his book of novel suggestions
for the “Improvement of England by Sea and Land,” printed in 1677, describes as follows:—
“And first, I will begin in Monmouthshire, and go through the Forest of Dean, and there take notice what infinite quantities of raw iron is there made, with bar iron and wire; and consider the infinite number of men, horses, and carriages which are to supply these works, and also digging of ironstone, providing of cinders, carrying to the works, making it into sows and bars, cutting of wood and converting into charcoal. Consider also, in all these parts, the woods are not worth the cutting and bringing home by the owner to burn in their houses; and it is because in all these places there are pit coal very cheap. . . . If these advantages were not there, it would be little less than a howling wilderness. I believe if this comes to the hands of Sir Baynom Frogmorton and Sir Duncomb Colchester, they will be on my side. Moreover, there is yet a most great benefit to the kingdom in general by the sow iron made of the ironstone and Roman cinders in the Forest of Dean, for that metal is of a most gentle, pliable, soft nature, easily and quickly to be wrought into manufacture, over what any other iron is, and it is the best in the known world; and the greatest part of this sow iron is sent up Severne to the forges into Worcester, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Cheshire, and there it’s made into bar iron: and because of its kind and gentle nature to work, it is now at Sturbridge, Dudley, Wolverhampton, Sedgley, Wasall and Burmingham, and there bent, wrought, and manufactured into all small commodities, and diffused all England over, and thereby a great trade made of it; and, when manufactured, into most parts of the world. And I can very easily make it appear, that in the Forest of Dean and thereabouts, and about the material that comes from thence, there are employed and have their subsistence therefrom no less than 60,000 persons. And certainly, if this be true, then it is certain it is better these iron works were up and in being than that there were none. And it were well if there were an Act of Parliament for enclosing all common fit or any way likely to bear wood in the Forest of Dean and six miles round the Forest; and that great quantities of timber might by the same law be there preserved, for to supply in future ages timber for shipping and building. And I dare say the Forest of Dean is, as to the iron, to be compared to the sheep’s back as to the woollen; nothing being of more advantage to England than these two are. . . .
“In the Forest of Dean and thereabouts, the iron is made at this day of cinders, being the rough and offal thrown by in the Romans’ time; they then having only foot blasts to melt the iron stone; but now, by the force of a great wheel that drives a pair of bellows twenty feet long, all that iron is extracted out of the cinders, which could not be forced from it by the Roman foot blast. And in the Forest of Dean and thereabouts, and as high as Worcester, there are great and infinite quantities of these cinders, some in vast mounts above ground, some underground, which will supply the iron works some hundreds of years, and these cinders are they which make the prime and best iron, and with much less charcoal than doth the ironstone. . . . Let there be one ton of this bar-iron made of Forest iron, and £20 will be given for it.”
The 4th “Order” of the Mine Law Court, dated 27th April, 1680, fixes the prices at which twelve Winchester bushels of iron mine should be delivered at the following places:—St. Wonnarth’s furnace, 10s.; Whitechurch, 7s.; Linton, 9s.; Bishopswood, 9s.; Longhope, 9s.; Flaxley, 8s.; Gunnsmills (if rebuilt), 7s.; Blakeney, 6s.; Lydney, 6s.; at those within the Forest (if rebuilt), the same as in 1668; Redbrooke, 4s. 6d.; the Abbey (Tintern), 9s.; Brochweare, 6s. 6d.; Redbrooke Passage, 5s. 6d.; Gunnpill, 7s.; or ore (intended for inland) shipped on the Severn, 6s. 6d.
Most of these localities present traces of long continued iron manufacture, especially St. Wonnarth’s, Whitchurch, Bishopswood, and Flaxley, where the energetic proprietress, Mrs. Boevey, is said by Sir R. Atkyns to have had (c. A.D. 1712) “a furnace for casting of iron, and three forges.” Charcoal is the only fuel of which any indications remain, the coppice woods being in several instances preserved from
which it used to be obtained, and the furnaces are shown to have been invariably situated where waterpower was at command.
The prices affixed to the ore, including delivery, indicate a discontinuance, in a measure, of the mines on the north-east edge of the Forest. Those adjoining Newland and in Noxon Park, both on the opposite side of the Forest, appear to have formed the principal sources of supply. The records of the Court of Mine Law, belonging to this date, allude oftener to these works than to others, for the same reason.
Its “order,” dated 8th December, 1685, in providing that “the one-half of the jury of 48 should be iron-miners, and the other half colliers,” manifests considerable decay in the influence and number of the former operatives, once so much otherwise. It is remarkable that the later orders are silent as regards iron, owing to the suppression of the Forest furnaces.
With respect to the mode now in use of reducing the mine ore, there is preserved so explicit an account, from the pen of Dr. Parsons, the county antiquary and naturalist of that age, as to call for its verbatim insertion here:—
“The ore and cinder, wherewith they make their iron (which is the great employment of the poorer sort of inhabitants), ’tis dug in most parts of the Forest, one in the bowells, and the other towards the surface of the earth.
“There are two sorts of ore: the best ore is your Brush ore, of blewish colour, very ponderous, and full of shiny specks, like grains of silver; this affordeth the greatest quantity of iron, but being melted alone, produceth a metal very short and brittle. To remedy this inconvenience, they make use of another material, which they call cinder, it being nothing else but the refuse of the ore, after the melting hath been extracted, which, being melted with the other in due quantity, gives it that excellent temper of toughness for which this iron is preferred before any other that is brought from foreign parts.
“After they have provided their ore, their first work is to calcine it, which is done in kilns, much after the fashion of our ordinary lime kilns; these they fill up to the top with coal and ore untill it be full, and so, putting fire to the bottom, they let it burn till the coal be wasted, and then renew the kilnes with fresh ore and coal. This is done without any infusion of mettal, and serves to consume the more drossy part of the ore, and to make it fryable, supplying the beating and washing, which are to no other mettals; from hence they carry it to their furnaces, which are built of brick and stone, about 24 foot square on the outside, and near 30 foot in hight within, and not above 8 or 10 foot over where it is widest, which is about the middle, the top and bottom having a narrow compass, much like the form of an egg. Behind the furnace are placed two high pair of bellows, whose noses meet at a little hole near the bottom: these are compressed together by certain buttons placed on the axis of a very large wheel, which is turned round by water, in the manner of an over-shot mill. As soon as these buttons are slid off, the bellows are raised again by a counterpoise of weights, whereby they are made to play alternately, the one giving its blast whilst the other is rising.
“At first they fill these furnaces with ore and cinder intermixt with fuel, which in these works is always charcoal, laying them hollow at the bottom, that they may the more easily take fire; but after they are once kindled, the materials run together into an hard cake or lump, which is sustained by the furnace, and through this the mettal as it runs trickles down the receivers, which are placed at the bottom, where there is a passage open, by which they take away the scum and dross, and let out their mettal as they see occasion.
“Before the mouth of the furnace lyeth a great bed of sand, where they make furrows of the fashion they desire to cast their iron: into these, when the receivers are full, they let in their mettal, which is made so very fluid by the violence of the fire that it not only runs to a considerable distance, but stands afterwards boiling a great while.
“After these furnaces are once at work, they keep them constantly employed for many months together, never suffering the fire to slacken night or day, but still supplying the waste of fuel and other materials with fresh, poured in at the top.
“Several attempts have been made to bring in the use of the sea coal in these works instead of charcoal; the former being to be had at an easy rate, the latter not without a great expence; but hitherto they have proved ineffectual, the workmen finding by experience that a sea-coal fire, how vehement soever, will not penetrate the most fixed parts of the ore, by which means they leave much of the mettal behind them unmelted.
“From these furnaces they bring the sows and piggs of iron, as they call them, to their forges; these are two sorts, though they stood together under the same roof; one they call their finery, and the other chafers: both of them are upon hearths, upon which they place great heaps of sea coal, and behind them bellows like those of the furnaces, but nothing near so large.
“In such finerys they first put their piggs of iron, placing three or four of them together behind the fire, with a little of one end thrust into it, where softening by degrees they stir and work them with long barrs of iron till the mettal runs together in a round masse or lump, which they call an half bloome: this they take out, and giving it a few strokes with their sledges, they carry it to a great weighty hammer, raised likewise by the motion of a water wheel, where, applying it dexterously to the blows, they presently beat it into a thick short square; this they put into the finery again, and heating it red hot, they work it under the same hammer till it comes to the shape of a bar in the middle, with two square knobs in the ends; last of all they give it other heatings in the chaffers, and more workings under the hammer, till they have brought their iron into barrs of several shapes, in which fashion they expose them to sale.
“All their principal iron undergoes the aforementioned preparations, yet for several other purposes, as for backs of chimneys, hearths of ovens, and the like, they have a sort of cast iron which they take out of the receivers of the furnace, so soon as it is melted, in great ladles, and pour it into the moulds of fine sand in like manner as they do cast brass and softer mettals; but this sort of iron is so very brittle, that, being heated with one blow of the hammer, it breaks all to pieces.”