[15] Hoskins; _Encylopædia Britannica_, 7th edit.
[16] Just as Charles, Duke of Norfolk, in our day, was accustomed to
feed his favourite dogs, by cutting pieces from joints on the
dinner-table, and throwing them to the dogs on the polished floor of
Arundel Castle.
[17] 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.
[18] In some parts of England, the _badness of the roads_ continued to
our day, when mud and clay were almost as great hindrances as in the
Saxon times. Kent and Sussex were specially ill-favoured in this
respect. Defoe, after travelling through all the counties, tells us that
the road from Tunbridge was "the deepest and dirtiest" in all that part
of England; and hereabouts it was, not far from Lewes, that he describes
a sight which he had never seen in any other part of England, "that
going to church at a country village, he saw an ancient lady, and a lady
of very good quality, drawn to church in her coach with six oxen; nor
was it either frolic or humour, but mere necessity." In 1708, Prince
George of Denmark journeyed from Godalming, through the Sussex mud to
Petworth, to meet Charles VI. of Spain: it cost six hours to conquer the
last nine miles of the way. At a later date, Horace Walpole calls Sussex
"a fruitful country, but very dirty for travellers, so that it may be
better measured by days' journeys than by miles; whence it was, that in
a late order for regulating the wages of coachmen at such a price a
day's journey from London, Sussex alone was excepted, as wherein shorter
way or better pay was allowed." Yet, in this county, stage-coach
travelling attained higher perfection than in the majority of the
counties of England. "In these days of railroads, express trains,
excursion trains, mail trains, parliamentary trains, and special trains,
there is no great difficulty in making a tour in Sussex, without any
very great outlay of expense or time."--_Quarterly Review._