I would agree that Gunn's Mill is probably the best Gloucestershire example - but I suspect
that much of that structure dates from the 1680s rebuild (I believe including the iron beams in
the arches - so it may have been an almost total rebuild).
There is a good discussion of the origins of John Berkeley in the 1997 article by Amina
Chatwin in Historical Metallurgy, 31/1, p17-24. The furnace near Berkeley was at
Michaelwood, Tortworth (i.e. to the east of the Severn) and apparently operated in the period
1610-1612 by a Thomas Hacket and later by Sir William Throckmorton - but the works is
supposed to have failed because of competion with Sir Edward Winter whose furnace in
Lydney (on the west of the Severn adjacent to the Forest of Dean) was attempting to exploit
iron ore from the same areas of Dean. It seesm no direct link between John Berkeley and the
furnace was found - though the earliest reference to it is in the writings of John Smyth of
Nibley steward to the Berkeleys and an investor in the Berkeley plantation.
Tim
--
Dr Tim Young MA PhD FSA FGS
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