| Share page |
|
THE LAND OF THE SOUTH SAXONS. 3
Phillippe and his Queen, disguised as Mr. and Mrs. Smith, landed on their escape from France.
We do not now think of Sussex as a seat of manufacture, yet here was the earliest seat of the 1 iron industry. Roman coins have been found in I the old cinder beds, and in the Middle Ages the iron-works flourished greatly. The tomb of Henry III. was guarded by Sussex railings, and the horses that went to the fatal field of Bannock-burn were shod with Sussex horse-shoes. When artillery came into use, the first cannon were cast here. The great forests which covered nearly all the county were destroyed in the process of smelting. The savage animals that once roamed in the sylvan glades were exterminated, though the wild cat survived at Ashdown to the sixteenth century. But by the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Sussex iron industry was on the wane, and the manufacture passed from the South to the North of England. The manufacture of glass, though perhaps never very extensive, was another branch of the early trade of Sussex. The shepherd and the fisherman are the characteristic special types of the industry of the county. The Southdown breed of sheep has attained great fame. To the maritime industry we owe the |
||