Recorded on O.S. maps as “Ironworks (site of). Here an Elizabethan ironworks (1615-50) was set up at Dedisham, where there was both a furnace and forge (hammer). Sussex became one of the most industrialised counties in the Country. The comparative proximity to London meant that iron, corn, leather and wood were supplied to the capital. Money thus generated saw the building of new houses and over 40 smoke-bay and chimney houses in Rudgwick survive from this period, to house the increasing population. Mr Samuel Winbolt reported in 1928 “...The site of the furnace at Dedisham has been traced and the cinder bank found, with plenty of iron slag underneath. It is overgrown now with trees...”. (SAC LXIX (1928)., Notes & Queries, p. 233). In Jan 1930, Samuel Winbolt, with the help of Mr Ernest Straker, re-investigated the site and both gentlemen concluded that an ancient bloomery preceeded the early 17th century hammer. The remains extended for about 80 yards along a stream flowing into the Arun and they found several worked flints on the spot. Celtic and Roman iron-working here is indicated, and this would perhaps account for the ancient slag found in the bed of Stane Street at Roman Gate. Evidence seems to be accumulating of ancient Celtic bloomeries in which the only indications, apart from ancient iron slag and cinders, are flint implements: no pottery sherds were present. (SAC Vol 71.,(1930), Notes & Queries pps. 264-5) Mr Winbolt in his 1930 report, went as far as to remark “My attention has been drawn to several hitherto unrecorded bloomery sites in the neighbourhood which have yielded a very early type of slag, and in nearly every case flint flakes of the pygmy type have been found in conjunction. This has led me to tentatively advance the idea that these iron-working sites may go back even as far as the Neolithic times…” He adds in a report in 1931 “…In my report in Vol LXXI., I alluded to the site of the ironworks at Dedisham. Last summer, with the help of a party of Christ’s Hospital boys on several afternoons, I dug through a big area of iron slag by the stream flowing into the Arun. It was 1½ - 2 ft. thick, but there were no signs of bloomery hearths below, and my conclusion is that it was simply a dump of slag carted there for use on heavy plough land. It was common practice in the neighbourhood to dress heavy clay fields with glass or iron slag…” (SAC LXXII (1931) p. 276).
There are actually two sites relating to Dedisham, one the Furnace site, centred on TQ 107 333 (Straker’s Wealden Iron p.443, Serial 256), and the other the forge site, centred on TQ 107 329 (Straker’s Wealden Iron p. 443-4 serial 257).
The entry in Ernest Straker’s “Wealden Iron” (1931) locates the furnace at being 1¼ miles N.W. of Slinfold Church at 51 5’ 15” N. 0 25’ 10” W. and the forge as being located 1¼ miles N.W. by W. of Slinfold Church at 51 5’ 5” N. 0 25’ 20” W. Local names of farms, fields and coppices remain, to remind us of the past industry, - names such as Furnace Farm, Furnace House, Furnace Wood, Furnace Pond, Hammer Pond, Great and Little Mill Closes, Hammer Plats (on S. side of Arun). The site is not mentioned in the 1574 or in the 1664 list. The hammer is referred to in a deed of May 9th 1631, (Close Roll, 2892), conveying certain land in the manor of Dedisham and parish of Rudgwick, including “the close or mead called the Mill meadow, and one other parcel of meadow ground… lying near the works or iron-mill called the hammer.” Mill close is so named in the Tithe Apportionment of 1840.
“The furnace bay is a very high one, and the pond now dry, must have been of a considerable size. The flow of water is very small, and it is hard to understand how the furnace can have worked except in the rainy season. There is an abundance of furnace slag.
There are actually two sites relating to Dedisham, one the Furnace site, centred on TQ 107 333 (Straker’s Wealden Iron p.443, Serial 256), and the other the forge site, centred on TQ 107 329 (Straker’s Wealden Iron p. 443-4 serial 257).
The entry in Ernest Straker’s “Wealden Iron” (1931) locates the furnace at being 1¼ miles N.W. of Slinfold Church at 51 5’ 15” N. 0 25’ 10” W. and the forge as being located 1¼ miles N.W. by W. of Slinfold Church at 51 5’ 5” N. 0 25’ 20” W. Local names of farms, fields and coppices remain, to remind us of the past industry, - names such as Furnace Farm, Furnace House, Furnace Wood, Furnace Pond, Hammer Pond, Great and Little Mill Closes, Hammer Plats (on S. side of Arun). The site is not mentioned in the 1574 or in the 1664 list. The hammer is referred to in a deed of May 9th 1631, (Close Roll, 2892), conveying certain land in the manor of Dedisham and parish of Rudgwick, including “the close or mead called the Mill meadow, and one other parcel of meadow ground… lying near the works or iron-mill called the hammer.” Mill close is so named in the Tithe Apportionment of 1840.
“The furnace bay is a very high one, and the pond now dry, must have been of a considerable size. The flow of water is very small, and it is hard to understand how the furnace can have worked except in the rainy season. There is an abundance of furnace slag.
“The hammer was situated on the south side of the Horsham-Guildford road, where there is a very long but low bay extending nearly to the Dedisham bridge, giving a long shallow pond. This was fed not only from the weak furnace stream, but by a long ditch from the Arun itself, about three-eighths of a mile sbove the Dedisham bridge, now partly obscured by the road. The course of the Arun between theae points has in parts been diverted to form part of the Dedisham defences; the old bed is indicated by the parish boundary, a small area on the north side of the present stream opposite Dedisham being in Slinfold parish.
“A cut, perhaps for drainage purposes, not far from the eastern end of the bay, is by a mound full of large lumps of hammer-sinder, and there is much in the stream banks. The site of the forge was probably at the junction of the bay with the stream running down from the furnace; the arable field on the west side has a considerable area, some eighty yards by thirty, of black soil full of cinder, some of which has much the appearance of bloomery cinder. It is quite possible that a bloomery here preceded the Stuart works. On the surface and under it are flint flakes, and Neolithic flint implements have been found.“In 1930 Mr S. E. Winbolt dug a patch some 36 feet square to a depth of 1 ½ to 2 feet, but found no hearths.”
Both sites were again re-visited by the Wealden Iron Research Group in 1975 and 1976 respectively, and the following reports were made.
Furnace site TQ107 333: “When visited, this dry pond was being restored. Mechanical diggers were taking silt from this pond and piling it on the front of the bay while a length on each side of the stream had been entirely removed. The bay was 155 yards long and 7½ feet high on the upstream, and 11 feet high on the downstream side. The stream had breached the extreme eastern end and there was much glassy slag in the stream bed. There seemed to have been a weir at the extreme western end and leading from it is a banked channel now dry. One of the most interesting features was a large heap of lumps of raw chalk behind the bay, at its extreme eastern end, unearthed during the present operations. It lay under about 2 feet of top soil, and had perhaps been imported for use as flux. Furnace House, at the eastern end of the bay, shows several periods of building additions. The southern end appears to be the oldest part and could well date back to the 17th century.” (WIRG Vol 1., No. 8 (Spring 1975).
Forge site TQ107 329: “…This site is an unusual one in that the pond was formed by a long main bay running along the valley, with a short return across it. This short return bay is now gone but the long bay, nearly 400 yards in length, remains almost intact. Straker explains the complications of the waterway systems that seem to have been used here. Today it looks as if the present rather winding course of the Arun, south of the former pond, is artificial. The channel is very deep and its course is through ground higher than that of the valley bottom. Straker suggests that the working area was at the western end, however there is an area of disturbed ground at the eastern end, in the space between the bay and the bridge, that takes the farm road over the Arun. Also at this end, in the gap made in the bay between it and the main road, there are several forge bottoms…”. (WIRG Vol.1., No. 9, p. 6 (Spring 1976)
