Among the lists of articles, the importation of which was prohibited in Edward IV.'s reign, with a view to the protection of domestic manufactures, we find no mention of iron, which was still, as a matter of necessity, allowed to come freely from abroad.
The first indications of revival in the iron manufacture showed themselves in Sussex, a district in which the Romans had established extensive works, and where smelting operations were carried on to a partial extent in the neighbourhood of Lewes, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, where the iron was principally made into nails and horse-shoes.

The county abounds in ironstone, which is contained in the sandstone beds of the Forest ridge, lying between the chalk and oolite of the district, called by geologists the Hastings sand.

The beds run in a north-westerly direction, by Ashburnham and Heathfield, to Crowborough and thereabouts.

In early times the region was covered with wood, and was known as the Great Forest of Anderida.

The Weald, or wild wood, abounded in oaks of great size, suitable for smelting ore; and the proximity of the mineral to the timber, as well as the situation of the district in the neighbourhood of the capital, sufficiently account for the Sussex iron-works being among the most important which existed in England previous to the discovery of smelting by pit-coal.
The iron manufacturers of the south were especially busy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.