{"id":781498,"date":"2026-07-05T09:17:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T09:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/781498\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T09:17:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T09:17:08","slug":"the-forgotten-powerhouse-in-surrey-sussex-border-forest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/781498\/","title":{"rendered":"The forgotten powerhouse in Surrey-Sussex border forest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Long before the Industrial Revolution reshaped Britain, the Sussex Weald was already alive with heat and hammering.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Fernhurst Furnace, tucked deep into woodland near the Surrey border, is a surviving relic of Britain&#8217;s early iron industry. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In the 17th and 18th centuries, the site produced cast iron for making household items, farm tools and cannons. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Speaking to BBC Secret Sussex at the site, researcher Jeremy Hodgkinson said the furnace &#8220;stood as tall as a house&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The sound of the industry would have been all around us.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The roar of the furnace, the sounds of people digging iron ore and chopping down trees for making charcoal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;There would have been a lot of workmen here in one way or another.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But he added: &#8220;All you can hear now is the wind in the trees, the sound of birdsong, and the gentle trickle of water.&#8221; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Long before the Industrial Revolution reshaped Britain, the Sussex Weald was already alive with heat and hammering. Fernhurst&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":781499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674],"class_list":["post-781498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=781498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/781499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}