The steel was said to be of good quality, resembling Swedish--both alike depending for their excellence on the exclusive use of charcoal in smelting the ore,--iron so produced maintaining its superiority over coal-smelted iron to this day.
When cannon came to be employed in war, the nearness of Sussex to London and the Cinque Forts gave it a great advantage over the remoter iron-producing districts in the north and west of England, and for a long time the iron-works of this county enjoyed almost a monopoly of the manufacture.

The metal was still too precious to be used for cannon balls, which were hewn of stone from quarries on Maidstone Heath.

Iron was only available, and that in limited quantities, for the fabrication of the cannon themselves, and wrought-iron was chiefly used for the purpose.

An old mortar which formerly lay on Eridge Green, near Frant, is said to have been the first mortar made in England;[6] only the chamber was cast, while the tube consisted of bars strongly hooped together.

Although the local distich says that "Master Huggett and his man John They did cast the first cannon," there is every reason to believe that both cannons and mortars were made in Sussex before Huggett's time; the old hooped guns in the Tower being of the date of Henry VI.