Roman Industrial Area in the Brede Valley in Sussex

The numbers next to the Bloomeries show the century in which details for this site have been found, a 1 means 1st century AD etc a ? means probably Roman but no proof, the bloomery data comes from the Wealden Iron Research Group, the link to their site is at the bottom of the page.

As you can see, a large number of the Roman Bloomeries are located fairly near the main Roman Roads or Trackways, this implies that the iron produced was carried via these routes to the nearest valley points where the pig iron could be carried by barge to the nearest port. Both the Tillingham and Brede valleys seem to have a number of iron working sites especially from the 1st and 2nd centuries.

The nearest port would seem to be near modern Rye or the end of the Brede Valley near to Cadborough cliffs, the name implies a major Roman defensive point, and would be a good place to defend the entrances to both the Brede and Tillingham valleys. There is an area on the modern Winchelsea site called Castle Field which implies a Roman fortified site, and this site opposite Cadborough Cliffs would also be a good place for a Pharos(lighthouse). To complete the defensive layout of the area a further fortified site would need to be on the hill opposite Cadborough near to where Playden graveyard is.

At Battle there is an area called Caldbec(Cold stream) Hill, which would be a good place for a Roman Villa which would oversee the valley with a view to the Winchelsea fort, and with fresh uncontaminated water from the iron processing further down the valley.

One or two of the plotted road routes may have slight alignment issues as places and names have changed over the last 60 years since the books by Ivan D Margary were published, making it very difficult to match locations exactly.

If you zoom out the Forest of Anderida in shaded in green, the high tide changes in the coastline shown in pale blue, and the 5 metre high tide mark on the rivers shown in dark blue.

For the rivers, the 5 meter mark is shown however the tidal reach could be further inland due to the back pressure from the rivers upstream.

Purple lines show proposed changes/potential new Roman Roads based on the landscape/satellite features.