well as iron for smith's use.

The iron-works at Sowdley are all that remain to be noticed. Here, as
early as 1565, iron wire is said to have been made, being drawn by
strength of hand. In 1661 Mr. Paysted states that the factory passed
from Roynon Jones, Esq., of Hay Hill, into the hands of a party named
Parnell and Co., who carried on the works until the year 1784, from which
date to 1804 Dobbs and Taylor had them. From 1824 on to 1828 they were
held by Browning, Heaven, and Tryer; but in the latter year Todd,
Jeffries, and Spirrin undertook the business, converting a part of the
premises into paint and brass works, which lasted for about four years.
Two blast furnaces were built on the spot in 1837 by Edward Protheroe,
Esq., who worked them for four years. In 1857 they were purchased by
Messrs. Gibbon, and are now in blast.

Eight blast furnaces were at work in the Forest in the year 1856, and
produced upwards of 24,132 tons of iron of the best quality.

It only remains to state that twenty iron-mines were awarded by the
Mining Commissioners in 1841, and these are since increased to upwards of
fifty, several of them comprising very extensive workings, and are
furnished with very powerful pumping engines; that at Shakemantle raises
198.25 gallons per stroke, and the one at Westbury Brook 24 gallons, from
a depth of 186 yards.

The annual yield of iron mine from the four principal pits is:--

Buckshaft 14,574 Tons.
Old Sling Pit 13,263 ,,
Westbury Brook 11,725 ,,
Easter Iron Mine 10,782 ,,

The total yield from all the iron-mines in the Forest for 1856 was
109,268 tons.

CHAPTER XV.

_The Forest Coal Works_--The earliest allusion to them--The original
method of mining for coal--Grants to the Earl of Pembroke in 1610,
&c.--First attempt to char coal for the furnace--Prices for which coal
was to be sold, as fixed by the "Orders" of the Court of Mine
Law--Contents of the existing documents belonging to that Court
described--State of the coal-works at the end of the last
century--Gradual improvements in the mode of working for coal--Mr.
Protheroe's collieries--The superior character of the most recent
coal-works--Amount raised in 1856 from the ten largest collieries.

There is a difficulty in determining which is to be considered the
earliest allusion to the working of coal in the Forest, since charcoal as