Hi David
I've seen rods pretty frequently on the bloomery sites around the Forest of Dean area. In
sone cases I suspect that tapping was undertaken through a fairly small hole in the block of
the tapping arch - rather than having an open arch. I've seen objects that look like SHCs with
a protruding rod that I think are slag bowls from the base of slag tapping furnaces.
I've also seen true SHCs with rods - and suspect these may be from attempts to extract the
cake using a stout poker - which has been pushed through the cake and down into
underlying ash(?). On withdrawing the poker the slag has filled the cavity.
Although by far the most common usually on bloomery sites, rods (and possibly tubes) are
extremely common on a finery site I've been looking at - presumably with a similar origin to
those proposed for the bloomery.
Tim
--
Dr Tim Young
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Web: www.geoarch.co.uk
Phone: 07802 413704
Fax: 08700 547366
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