Author: Jeremy Hodgkinson

SUMMER MEETING AND AGM 2025

Summer meeting & AGM 2025

To be held on Saturday 19 July 2025 from 10.30am at St Mary’s Barn (Church Hall), The Causeway, Horsham, W Sussex RH12 1HE  https://maps.app.goo.gl/VBzouHVP2Bj7sFry5

The location of St Mary’s Barn, Horsham Museum and the car park at Dukes Square

*Please note there is no car park at the hall. The nearest long term Parking is at Dukes Square car park, Denne Road RH12 1JF entrance on left after Drill Hall Pay & Display 4 hr £5-60, 5 hr £7.00. This is the second car park travelling south down Denne road – do not use the first car park on the right as this is limited to three hours parking.
Alternatively use Park and Ride at Hop Oast off A 24 at round-about onto Worthing Road RH13 0AR – entrance opposite Management Waste & Cleaning & entrance to recycling centre. Bus 98 every 20mins Bus 23 every hour to Horsham Bus Station – 10 min journey – Pay on bus – concession cards free. Then walk east up West St to Market Square, turn right down South Street which leads to the Causeway and Museum (on left) & St Mary’s Hall (on right – red brick building with moon shaped windows. Entrance through private car park.

Non-members of WIRG are welcome to the Summer Meeting and site visit but cannot vote at the AGM.

Agenda for the day

10.30 Coffee / tea
11.30 Introduction to visits
12.00 Annual General Meeting of the Wealden Iron Research Group.
12.45 Visit to Horsham Museum (50m along the Causeway on right towards the Town Centre)
13.30 Lunch break – lunch is not provided; please bring your own – you can picnic in the Museum courtyard & garden (toilets available) alternatively, there are plenty of food outlets around the Market Square
14.30 Depart for site visit to Shipley Forge, on the Knepp rewilding estate. Park in Shipley Village, School Lane RH13 8PL (sat nav 50.98545, -0.37181).

Lifts will be available to Shipley for those who have used Park & Ride, and back to Park & Ride after the visit.

The route from Horsham to Shipley off the A24 via the junction with the A272

A 2-mile return walk to the forge site via Shipley’s 12C church to see the tomb of Thomas Caryll, ironmaster of Knepp Furnace (operated 1568 to 1622).

The walk from Shipley to the Forge site will be along footpaths, a lane and a farm track (see map below). The distance is one mile each way. Unfortunately the forge site is now fenced off as part of the Knepp estate’s reintroduction of beavers but the original bay and water supply are evident and the pond is in water – albeit confined by a modern bay. If you feel unable to walk this distance there is plenty to see in Horsham Museum which closes at 4pm.

The route along footpaths from Shipley village to the forge

 

EXPERIMENTAL SMELTING

The group carries out experiments in a bloomery furnace similar to those that were operated in the Weald from pre-Roman times until the end of the Middle Ages.

Smelt Days 2025

1st Smelt Saturday 5th July
Standby day Saturday 12th July should weather be unsuitable

2nd Smelt Saturday 6th September.
(No standby day as WIRG at Fernhurst Furnace Open Weekend 13 & 14 Sept)

Smelts take place at Pippingford Park which is about six miles south of East Grinstead off the A22, between Wych Cross and Nutley.  We will be there from early Saturday morning to preheat the furnace and expect to start charging ore at about 11am with the drawing of the furnace around 3.30pm.

If you wish to attend please contact Tim Smith at the Secretary for detailed instructions how to find the site which is in woodland, and also so you can be informed should the event have to be postponed due to weather conditions which can be too wet (as we use an electrical pump) or too dry as the latter is a fire risk to the surrounding woodland.

Attendance requires participants to be members of WIRG. If you are not a member an application form can be downloaded from application form (PDF). The Membership fee is £15 and includes a bi-annual Newsletter and the annual Bulletin Wealden Iron and the option to attend a programme of fieldwork in the autumn and winter, as well as bi-annual meetings with visiting speakers, small-scale excavations, and a variety of other projects undertaken by its members.

 

More Paintings of Early-Modern Ironworks

Following on from Tim Smith’s article in Newsletter 77 on the painting of ironworks by the artist Herri met de Bles that hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the Grohmann Museum of the School of Engineering in Milwaukee, USA, has a collection of paintings of people in work situations. The collection includes two paintings by Marten van Valckenborch (1534-1612) which show furnaces and forges probably in the Meuse valley of southern Belgium.
Marten and his brother Lucas produced many paintings of similar scenes with ironworks as either the main subject or merely as features in the landscape.

A river valley with iron mining scenes, 1612; Marten van Valckenborch (Grohmann Museum, Milwaukee).

A smelt using the new reciprocating blower

In a move towards greater authenticity in our smelting experiments at Pippingford Park we have switched from our vortex blower, which supplies a constant flow of air, to an electrically driven reciprocating pump kindly denoted to WIRG by Peter Crew who conducted numerous experimental smelts using this in North Wales. Designed and built by Roger Miles, using a section of mains water pipe as the cylinder and a motor from a washing machine, the reciprocating pump better simulates blowing with bellows. This would have been the method used in early times, but requires a number of fit personnel to supply air for the duration of a day’s smelt.

Our latest smelt revealed both the change in colour of the flame as reduction takes place with the flame at the start being yellow and luminous as carbon monoxide is burning away, then fades to a more transparent flame as the ore consumes carbon monoxide during reduction. The flame returns to a luminous state during ‘burn down’ once all the ore has been reduced.

A temperature profile during the smelt shows a general fall in temperature while reduction takes place, as this is an endothermic (takes heat) reaction. This is best seen following the red line which is the thermocouple in the hotter position, closest to the reduction region.

A TV reporter from Meridian News filmed part of the smelt, interviewing me, and also Jeremy Hodgkinson, Jonathan Prus and Judie English the following weekend at the Fernhurst Open Day. You can see the filmed sequence HERE

Our final smelt for the season is scheduled for Saturday 8 October.  Should you wish to come, but the weather forecast be wet, check with Tim (01403 710148) on the Friday evening to see if we have had to postpone.

Tim Smith

Click HERE to see a short video of the different stages of the smelt (66.3Mb -Be patient!).

Help Needed – Who owns Roman sites?

Our sponsored PhD student Ethan Greenwood is planning his post-doctoral project, which will look further into Roman sites in the Weald. In these restricted times it will not be possible for him to call on prospective owners of sites to seek access to them, so he is appealing to WIRG members for help in identifying who owns some of these sites.

Details of the Roman sites can be found by following THIS LINK.

If you know a person who owns one or more of these sites, please pass on their contact details (address, phone number or email) to Ethan Greenwood so he can get in touch with them.