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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2012
That iron could be melted and cast in moulds like other metals appears to have been known to the ancient Greeks, and it is not improbable that other nations of antiquity also became from time to time aware of the property; especially if it is the fact that primitive furnaces were sometimes constructed on exposed hillsides where the winds of heaven performed the function of bellows. Philosophers in all ages must have suspected, if indeed they did not absolutely know, that iron obeyed the universal law, melting as other metals do, but under a more intense heat. The absence of iron-casting in medieval times may be ascribed to the primitive hearths in general use, which were incapable of heating the ore to the melting point, while, no real demand existing, the iron-masters were never stimulated to furnish a supply.
page 134 note a See Lower, M. A. on the “Iron Works of the County of Sussex,” in Sussex Archæological Collections, ii. 178Google Scholar. Mr. Lower suggested that the memorial was to a member of the Collins family of ironfounders, subsequently seated at Socknersh, in the adjacent parish of Brightling.
page 135 note a Vol. x. 472.
page 136 note a Archaeologia, li. 227, notea.
page 139 note a An inventory of the iron works at Hamsel, Rotherfield, dated 1708, shows that the price of cast cannon had fallen in the time of Queen Anne to £5 per ton. Nearly half the founder's assets, which comprise household goods, are cast guns. This document is possessed by Miss Bell Irving of Mayfield.
page 142 note a Sussex Archaeological Collections, ii. 188, and figure.
page 145 note a One from Worth (Sussex Archæological Collections, ii. 189) is inscribed: THOMAS VNSTEAD ISFILD, AND DINIS HIS WIF, ANO DOMINO, 1582. The other (ibid. 217) from Sutton Hurst has: THES IS FOR IAMES HIDE AND HIS WIF 1582.
page 146 note a Illustrated Catalogue of the Heraldic Exhibition, Pl. xx.
page 151 note a Engraved in Sussex Archcœological Collections, ii. 189.
page 156 note a According to the journal of the Rev. Giles Moore, printed in the Sussex Archæological Collections, i. 74, the value of a plate with arms was 10s. “I payed Edward Cripps for an iron plate for my parlour grate with Mr. Mitchelbournes arms upon it, 10s.” Ibid. 77, “for a plate cast for my kitchen chimney, weighing 100 lb. and 3 qr. marked G. M. S. besides two shillings given to the founders for casting, 13s.”
page 158 note a The earliest backs seen in the Low Countries are temp. Charles V. Havard notes nothing earlier for France than 1548, in the Comptes Royaux. “Item a esté faict ung contre cueur de fer de fonte, où est figuré ung Herculles.” Classic mythology supplied subjects to the French founders a century before such designs were appreciated here. One in the Cluny Museum of the time of Henri II. bears Mars and Venus, and another has the same gods associated with the arms of Coucy. 1578. The royal arms of France displayed over the entire back are not seen much before Louis XIII, though one in the Cluny Museum with the French shield thrice repeated, ascribed to the fifteenth century, is no doubt inspired by our Wealden backs from moveable moulds.
page 163 note a “Deux chenetz de fer, deux chiens de feu aussi de fer.” “Deux gros chenetz de fer aussi deux petits chiens de feu aussi de fer.” Havard. l.c. see chenet and chien de feu.
page 163 note b Four pair made for the Queen's apartments in the Louvre, 1364–68, weighed 456 lbs. In the inventory of Charles V., 1380: “Deux tres beaulx chenets de fer ouvrés à fenestrages et à bestes.” Havard, l.c.
