Michael Flanders and Donald Swann were a music and comedy double act who wrote “all their own songs” including “The Bedstead Men” a wry explanation for the rusty bedsteads dumped in ponds and lakes in the UK. It includes the line the “hammer ponds of Sussex and the dewponds of the west”. Sussex has both hammer ponds and dewponds.
Hammer ponds are the visible reminders of the once extensive iron industry that stretched across the south of England from Surrey in the west, through West and East Sussex to Kent. They often lie in wooded valleys and are an attractive landscape feature. The map above (click for an interactive version) shows the location of known hammer and furnace ponds in Sussex. It is known that iron was produced in this area during the Iron Age and extensively by the Romans. The features we see today mostly date to the Tudor and Stuart periods (the early 1500s to mid-1600s). Near many of these ponds, there would have been a furnace or forge. There is little trace of these features today and are often only identified by small amounts of building rubble, slag and spoil heaps.
An excellent and accessible guide to hammer and furnace ponds has been written by Helen Pearce. More details on the author’s website http://www.hammerpond.org.uk/
There is also a comprehensive website maintained by the Wealden Iron Research Group and database of sites.
[By Graham Ward CC BY-NC-ND]
[By Graham Ward CC BY-NC-ND]
© Copyright : Graham Ward. All rights reserved.