For two periods of British history - the first part of the Roman occupation and the Tudor and early Stuart periods - the Weald of south-east England was the most productive iron-producing region in the country. Looking across the tranquil Wealden countryside, it is hard to identify anything that hints at its industrial past. Yet 400 years ago, nearly 100 furnaces and forges roared and hammered there, the smoke from charcoal-making curling up from the surrounding woods and the roads bustling with wagons laden with ore and iron sows. Many British naval campaigns, including the Spanish Armada, the wars against the Dutch and The Seven Years' War, relied on Wealden iron cannon; the pressures of conflict driving forward the development of iron-producing technology. For a time the economy of the whole area was dominated by the production of iron and its raw materials, providing employment, generating prosperity and shaping the landscape irrevocably. Drawing on a wealth of local evidence, this book explores the archaeology and history of an area whose iron industry was of international importance.

The iron industry was the catalyst for the Industrial Revolution, producing a vital source of iron without which none of the great engineering achievements of the Victorian age would have been possible. This book charts the growth of iron making from the Middle Ages, covering the importation of blast-furnace methods in the fifteenth century, the adoption of coke as a fuel in the eighteenth century, and the invention of mass-produced steel in the nineteenth century. The developing techniques of iron making, all explained in a non-technical style, make a story in their own right, but combined with the experiences of the masters and workmen who laboured at the furnaces and forges, this volume offers a truly comprehensive account of one of the most important industries of recent centuries.

Studies of Kent's economic history confirm the industrial revolution to have been less cataclysmic and more widespread then formerly accepted.