INDUSTRIES DRAYTON'S 'small shire,' Fuller's ' dwarf ' amongst the English counties, the provinciola minima of Camden,' is possessed of ' one vale of special name, one forest, and one flood,' ^ but the Stilton cheese of the Catmose valley, and the turner's craft of the Forest of Leafield have alike shrunk to slender proportions. The manufacturing activities of the little county, purely agricultural as it is in character, have been almost unanimously dismissed by topographers as ' of no account,' whilst the mineralogy, from which Rutland derives its chief industries at the present day, the quarrying of both Ketton stone and iron ore, has been described as ' upon a very circumscribed scale.' * At one time the Welland furnished a well-used navigable waterway ; at a later date the county was served by the ' exten- sive Melton Mowbray Canal to Oakham.' ° The earlier roads, however, in the forest region, were probably no better than those in Northampton- shire. As late as the close of the 1 8th century indeed the turnpike roads were reported to be 'badly formed,' and not in good repair, owing to the stones being laid in autumn and winter in- stead of in spring, the sides of the roads, more- over, not being properly levelled.' At the present day heavy goods in Rutland, as elsewhere, are largely conveyed by rail, the chief service within the county being supplied by the Midland and London and North Western systems, while, in addition, the Stamford branch of the Great Northern Railway crosses the north-eastern cor- ner of the shire. The timber of the county, of which much is still cut from the 3,838 acres of woodland,' con- sisted largely, at the close of the 1 8th century, of oak, for building we are told, not for the Navy.* ' Camden, Brit. (ed. Gough), ii, 219. ' Drayton, Polyolbion. ' Brewer, Beauties of Engl, and Wales, xii, 18. ' Ibid. ' Parkinson, Agric. Rut. 158. ' This canal,' adds the same authority, ' was frequently defective in summer, from the scanty supply of water.' ^ Crutchley, Fieui of Agric. of Rut. 21. 'Kelly, Dir. 1904, p. 593. ' Crutchley, op. cit. 20. 1 233 The timber was cut in April and May, when it was sold to the farmers and tradesmen. In 1806 the average price was from zs. bd. to 2s. C)d. per cubic foot. The bark was sold to the tanners ' by the cubic yard, 20 yds. to a load, the price averaging ^^lo per load, peeling, stacking, &c., being paid for by the purchaser. A load weighed from 30 to 35 cwt. Underwood was cut in November and December, and sold for hedging at ;^6 to j^8 per acre.'" The coarser kind of oak, if not used for fences, was made into hurdles, gates, &c., and sold at Spalding, Peter- borough, and other fairs, and carried into the fen country. The ' Uppingham Trencher ' manufacture, which Grose assigns to the town in question, seems to be involved in some obscurity,'^ but whilst trustworthy evidence on this point does not seem to be forthcoming, it is by no means unlikely that the mediaeval turners, who were of such im- portance to the economy of table equipment prior to the adoption of ware and metal," should be attracted to the vicinity of the Forest of Lea- field, with its abundance of material ready to their hand.'* The brewing trade, although in early existence in the county, has no doubt been somewhat dis- counted by the superior resources of the neigh- bouring barley-bearing district of the Vale of Belvoir, to which Nottinghamshire and Leicester- shire, rather than Rutland, owe the reputation of their malt. Here, as elsewhere in the king- dom, however, the alewife makes her appearance ° William le Tanur and Henry le Tanur were pur- suing their craft at Oaicham at least as early as 1285. Assize R. 722, m. 4d. '" Crutchley, op. cit. " Ibid. " Grose, Glossary, 88. "Throughout the 15th and i6th centuries the beechen squares known as common trenchers, which were in ordinary use at table, varied in price from zd. to 6d. per dozen. A superior kind were sold at (>d. to i^d. In 1 60 1 these cost zd. Rogers, Agric. and Prices, V, 690. " At Barrowden there is now a small water-mill, where moulds for batter are turned out of the solid wood, and various devices are carved on them, giving employment to one old man. {fix informatione Mr. G. Phillips of Oakham.) 30
