were tried out at these mills. Cort's innovation was a new process for "fining" iron. This became essential once blast furnaces were used to extract iron from its ore. The "pig" iron produced was too impure for forging (though it could be cast): fining removed the impurities. The previous method of fining used a finery hearth fuelled with charcoal. By Cort's time wood for making charcoal had long become too scarce to enable the iron industry to expand: already many blast furnaces were using coke instead of charcoal. What Cort did was to burn coal in the furnace then "puddle" his impure iron, i.e. stir it with a long rod in the hot gas of the flames. The purified iron came out as spongy mass, and had to be consolidated (shingling). Another of Cort's innovations was to use grooved rolls in a rolling mill rather than a hammer to draw the iron out into a bar. This enabled the iron to be rolled into bars with a variety of cross-sections (square, circular, etc.). These two brilliant innovations were the most important ones for the iron industry in the Industrial Revolution. The former ruins of this industrial revolution iron mill with smelter's yard showed where the ore was also smelted, local ironstone being used. Manorial history The place is the remnant piece of two manors in the hundred of Titchfield, Great Funtley and Little Funtley (or Funtley Parva/Pageham). The manors first appear in the Domesday Book. The wider hundred was mostly Titchfield parish. It was locally a mixture of forest and relatively short farming leases that belonged to the crown. Accordingly, in 1279 John of Brittany withdrew his suit (of court) (claim to outright or continued ownership) in respect of his manors of Crofton, Lee Markes, and Funtley, and as he did not appear the sheriff was ordered to distrain (in favour of the King) upon his land. It was among a handful of manors in Titchfield's parish, the church of which dates to 680 AD, and contributed to the early founding of Titchfield Abbey. The other manor vested in the Arundel family from 1241 to 1615, but who long-let it, successively to the de Hoyvilles, Uvedales, others, Sir Richard Corbett and then Rashleighs whose 19th century holders had it much divided (sold off in pieces). Some of the area of the former manors has contributed to modern-day Knowle, a hill-top,