Smelting Iron in Africa

[awemawson]

In Petley Wood, which is on the other side of the A21 from my house, so only a few hundred yards, they were coppicing chestnut and alder for charcoal up to the 1980's, and had been doing so since Roman times. (AD 40 or so). Initially it was for the iron smelting, but in the 1700's and 1800's they went over to gun powder production. The locals here in East Sussex, renown for being unruly, were selling iron cannon and gun powder to the French when we were at war with them !!! They had good contacts established smuggling brandy silk and tea :)