Wealden iron industry

The Wealden iron industry was located in the Weald of south-eastern England. It was formerly an important industry, producing a large proportion of the bar iron made in England in the 16th century and most British cannon until about 1770. Ironmaking in the Weald used ironstone from various clay beds, and was fuelled by charcoal made from trees in the heavily wooded landscape. The industry in the Weald declined when ironmaking began to be fuelled by coke made from coal, which does not occur accessibly in the area.

Iron ore in the form of siderite, commonly known as iron stone or historically as mine, occurs in patches or bands in the Cretaceous clays of the Weald. Differing qualities of ore were extracted and mixed by experienced smelters to give the best results. Sites of opencast quarries survive from the pre-Roman and Roman eras, but medieval ore extraction was mainly done by digging a series of minepits about five metres in diameter and up to twelve metres deep with material being winched up in baskets suspended from a wooden tripod. This was less destructive of the land as spoil from one pit was used to backfill the previous pit allowing continued land use.

The fuel for smelting was charcoal, which needed to be produced as close as possible to the smelting sites because it would crumble to dust if transported far by cart over rough tracks. Wood was also needed for pre-roasting the ore on open fires, a process which broke down the lumps or nodules and converted the carbonate into oxide. Large areas of woodland were available in the Weald and coppicing woodlands could provide a sustainable source of wood. Sustainable charcoal production for a post-medieval blast furnace required the timber production from a 3 miles (4.8 km) radius of a furnace in a landscape that was a quarter to a third wooded. Forging and finishing of the iron from bloomeries and blast furnaces also required large quantities of charcoal and was usually carried out at a separate site.

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