Sussex Archaeological Collections 125

Excavations were carried out on three rock-shelters in Rocks Wood, Withyham. Two produced few or no finds. The third (Shelter 1) produced abundant flintwork of Mesolithic type, with some earlier and later pieces, pottery of several periods, and also a bowl furnace and much slag. This furnace, which had been sited under the convenient rock overhang, had completely destroyed the stratigraphy of the earlier use of the site, and is to be seen in connection with the early development of iron working in the central High Weald as known from similar sites such as Minepit Wood, which lies only 1km. to the south.

The evidence for prehistoric and Romano-British occupation is listed and discussed in relation to the existence of a pre-Roman Iron Age oppidium in the Selsey Chichester area. The catalogue of finds and the appendices are on microfiche.

Recent fieldwork has confirmed the location of a Roman tilery near Dell Quay, West Sussex. Although part of the site has been destroyed by coastal erosion, a geophysical land immediately adjacent to the foreshore was successful in locating a substantial magnetic anomaly which may represent a kiln. Trial excavations also revealed the presence of other features associated with the tilery. Finds from the site provide an insight into the range of products which was manufactured there, but are unfortunately of limited use for establishing the date of operation of the tilery.

Iron graveslabs are a peculiarity of, but not unique to, the Weald. They are found in a score or so of churches there and commemorate ironmasters and their families, or substantial yeomen and merchants, rather than gentry. As these families became more affluent and pretentious they were buried inside churches rather than in churchyards, their social aspirations rose and their graveslabs became larger and finer, often incorporating armorial bearings. By the 18th century marble mural tablets, as used by the gentry, were preferred, though bodies were often deposited under existing 'iron plates'. Decoration on the slabs in the form of letters and heraldic devices was made by impressing letters or pattern moulds into the sand casting-bed before pouring in molten iron to cast the slab. The casting of graveslabs paralleled the making and use of firebacks, a better known by-product of the Wealden iron industry. That graveslabs were a minor sideline of the ironworks and not executed by specialists is indicated by various illiteracies such as reversed and inverted letters, split words and the failure to distinguish between words. Made over a period of two centuries, they are durable, but subject to the vicissitudes of the changing fortunes of church buildings. After the charcoal-based iron industry ended, iron continued to be used to the early 20th century for churchyeard memorials. The 100 iron graveslabs of the Weald provide a tangible and eloquent record of a past industrial age and of the affluence accruing to certain families from it.

The potential of the documents relating to the Lloyd George Finance (1909-10) Act, 1910, has not yet been realized. This paper describes the background to the material and the structure of the documentation, and then goes on to show how this might be used in a Sussex setting. Two case studies (one urban, one rural) are given, from Horsham in West Sussex and from the Ashburnham estate in East Sussex.