Friends of St Leonard’s Forest © 2010 All Rights Reserved
Brief history
The Weald
St Leonard's is the most westerly remaining of the large forests which once formed a continuous tract across the central Wealden ridge of Sussex. These in turn were part of the great forest of Andereswald situated between the north and south Downs and which stretched east to west for a hundred miles inhabited by deer, wolves, wild boar - and man.
Iron smelting was carried out in the Weald in pre-Roman times but during the first part of the Roman occupation and again in the 16th and early-17th centuries, the Weald was the most important iron-producing region in the British Isles. Nearly 800 iron-making sites have been identified in the Weald. Sussex had the ingredients required - easily obtainable iron ore, timber and water.
The force of the water from the ’hammer ponds’ drove the hammers and bellows. The trees fed the nearby furnaces which were charged with ore mined from bell-pits. The wealth generated by the iron industry funded grand houses and parklands and many still exist.
In Tudor times, it is recorded that oxen pulled huge baulks of timber to the furnaces causing the tracks to be “full of dirt and myre” . Links with the rest of the county were poor as a consequence.
The Forest must have been a Royal hunting forest as records show that King John, Edward I and Edward III had hunted there. By 1561 though, at least part was owned by the Duke of Norfolk.
The casting of the first cannon (at Buxted in 1543) provided the stimulus for the expansion of the industry in the Weald, which was at its peak in the 16th and 17th centuries.
St Leonard's is the most westerly remaining of the large forests which once formed a continuous tract across the central Wealden ridge of Sussex. These in turn were part of the great forest of Andereswald situated between the north and south Downs and which stretched east to west for a hundred miles inhabited by deer, wolves, wild boar -
Iron smelting was carried out in the Weald in pre-
The force of the water from the ’hammer ponds’ drove the hammers and bellows. The trees fed the nearby furnaces which were charged with ore mined from bell-
In Tudor times, it is recorded that oxen pulled huge baulks of timber to the furnaces causing the tracks to be “full of dirt and myre” . Links with the rest of the county were poor as a consequence.
The Forest must have been a Royal hunting forest as records show that King John, Edward I and Edward III had hunted there. By 1561 though, at least part was owned by the Duke of Norfolk.
The casting of the first cannon (at Buxted in 1543) provided the stimulus for the expansion of the industry in the Weald, which was at its peak in the 16th and 17th centuries.