Abstract
IT is well known, as was recently mentioned in a letter in The Times, that iron ore occurs in various parts of the Weald, where mining and smelting were carried on by the Romans, and were continued until the nineteenth century. Smelting ceased in 1828, and mining in 1858. The Wealden iron industry was highly decentralized, and consisted of a large number of small works. It bears no comparison with that of modern times. E. Straker, in his book “Wealden Iron”(1931), lists more than 225 furnaces, forges and bloomeries spread in time over several centuries. The life of many of these was short. The largest works were at Ashburnham ; of these, Mr. Straker records that the annual output was about 350 tons. Wealden iron ore is usually a clay-ironstone and occurs in nodules and in thin beds up to a maximum of two feet in thickness, interbedded with shale. Sometimes a pale grey sideritic rock is present. The Wadhurst Clay furnished the bulk of supplies, but the other Wealden formations, and also a ferruginous superficial deposit-an ironstone 'pan' or 'shrave'-yielded their quota. Much was mined from bell-pits, which were rarely more than twenty feet deep, although some were upwards of forty feet in depth. Shale excavated with the iron ore was sold as 'marl' for agricultural purposes; indeed, agriculture and iron ore working seem to have gone hand in hand in many instances. Many quarries were opened primarily as 'marl pits', but all ironstone encountered was separated and sold when sufficient had been accumulated.
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Wealden Iron Ore. Nature 149, 134–135 (1942). https://doi.org/10.1038/149134c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/149134c0