GLOSSARY
Appurtenance:
an incidental property, right or privilege, as to a right of way, a barn, or an orchard, belonging to a principal part and passing in possession with it.
Blast furnace:
introduced in the sixteenth century, a massively constructed retort in which iron ore, scrap iron, limestone and charcoal or coke were bellows blown to temperatures in excess of 1,100 degrees Celsius. Combustion was forced by a current of air under pressure; the resulting molten iron was tapped onto a sand floor, forming ‘pigs’ of brittle cast iron.
Bloomery
:primitive predecessor of the blast furnace: an open hearth, bellows blown, producing blooms of wrought iron from ore and charcoal.
Chafer:
a portable grate.
Chafery/finery:
hearth(s) used to reheat and thus refine pig iron to be forged under water driven hammers.
Hydraulic ram:
simple mechanical device utilising water pressure and compressed air to raise a volume of water above the height of its original supply.
Messuage:
a dwellinghouse with the adjacent buildings and curtilage and the adjoining lands used in connection with the household.
Slitting mill:
introduced from Germany c.1565, to produce small diameter refined iron rods especially convenient for small industrial users, eg nail makers.
Sluice:
artificial water course or channel, the flow stopped or regulated by a gate or valve.