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Ashdown Forest formed an important part of the Wealden iron industry that operated from pre-Roman times until the early 18th century. The industry reached its peak in the two periods when the Weald was the main iron-producing region of Britain, namely in the first 200 years of the Roman occupation (1st to 3rd centuries AD) and during Tudor and early Stuart times. Iron-smelting in the former period was based on bloomery technology, while the latter depended for its rapid growth on the blast furnace, when the Ashdown area became the first in England to use this technology. The Forest was a particularly favourable location for iron production because of the presence of iron-ore in the local geology of sandstone Ashdown Beds and overlying Wadhurst Clay, the availability of large expanses of woodland for the production of charcoal, and deep, steep-sided valleys that had been incised into the relatively soft sandstone which together with locally high rainfall made it practical to dam streams to form lakes to provide water power for furnaces and forges. ==Iron Age and Roman Period== When the Romans invaded Britain in AD 43 the Weald already had a well-established tradition of iron-making, using very small, clay bloomery furnaces for iron-smelting. The pre-Roman settlement pattern was one of sparse occupation based on major defended enclosures along the northern edge of the High Weald with smaller enclosures deeper within it, such as the hill-fort at Garden Hill. The association of these smaller enclosures with iron-making and other evidence suggest that Iron Age colonizers saw the Weald primarily as a source of iron.〔Cleere (1978)〕 The Romans also saw the Weald's economic potential for iron-making and with growing markets in south-east England generated by the building of towns, villas and farms the industry grew, achieving high levels of output at its peak. There is evidence in Ashdown Forest of Roman bloomeries at Garden Hill, Pippingford Park and elsewhere. Like other sites in the western Weald, these are thought to have been private, commercial operations set up by entrepreneurs to produce iron goods for nearby civilian markets. This was in contrast to Roman iron production in the eastern Weald, which is thought to have been state-controlled and linked to the needs of the British Fleet, the Classis Britannica, and which may have been an ''Imperial Estate''.〔Salway, Peter (1981), Roman Britain, pp. 637-638.〕 The transition from Late Iron Age to Roman Era iron production in the Forest, as elsewhere in the Weald, may have been quite smooth. Bloomery production was already well-established and this southern coastal region of Britain had already become Romanised prior to the invasion of AD 43. It has been suggested that the poorly built Roman-era bath building at Garden Hill may indicate continuity of indigenous community and activity, and a desire to indulge in a more Romanised way of life.〔Leslie and Short (1999), p.22.〕 Rackham has highlighted the impact that the Romans' sophisticated woodmanship, including coppicing, which they practised in Italy, would have had on the Wealden forest in supplying the Roman military iron works there. Using Henry Cleere's estimates that the output of one Roman ironworks in the Weald would be 550 tonnes a year for 120 years, Rackham calculates that it could have been sustained permanently by the charcoal produced by 23,000 acres of coppice wood. He points out that there were many Roman ironworks in the Weald (at least 113 ironworking sites in the Weald have been dated to the Roman period, though of these 20 or less very big sites accounted for the majority of production);〔Hodgkinson (2008), p.31.〕 clearly, in this respect alone, the Wealden forest the Saxons found was not a virgin forest, but one already affected by human activity.〔Rackham (1986), p.74.〕 The trunk road between London and Lewes, partly metalled with iron slag from local bloomeries, would have served to carry the Forest's iron products to the Roman province's pre-eminent mercantile centre at London, and the densely populated agricultural areas of the South Downs and the coastal plain around Chichester.〔 It is likely that the iron goods transported to London and elsewhere took the form of semi-finished products; these would then have been worked into finished products for onward distribution, including overseas. Although the Roman iron industry flourished from the invasion to the mid 3rd century, it then declined until there was very little activity at all during the 4th century. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Iron industry of Ashdown Forest」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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