and Turners Hill). Iron age and Romans There is now evidence of Iron Age activity in the region, after a recent re-excavation of a major Roman ironworking site at Broadfield, just west of the park. Beginning of activity here, and in Southgate West just north, is considered to be of late Iron Age origin. However, a recent (2011) archaeological survey of Tilgate Forest found no positive evidence of Roman ironworking activity there. The only possibly Roman feature was a single "mine-pit" found south of the Tilgate Forest Recreation Centre, west of Titmus Lake at TQ269343 and so near the Roman ironworks. "Mine" is Sussex dialect for iron ore, and the feature was a bell pit which might have been dug much later. It is now accepted that the Romans were managing the entire High Weald as a strategic asset of military significance for the sake of its iron, and so were discouraging civilian settlement. The chain of command involved the Classis Britannica. Saxons The Saxons were certainly interested in using the thick woodland fringing the High Weald for pannage or transhumance involving feeding pigs on acorns. Local place names ending in -ley or -den indicate woodland clearings, mutating into farmsteads as transient swineherds became sedentary farmers and were joined by other immigrants. Crawley was one of these, and the dense woodland belt north of the sandstone of the Park would have been settled in this way. Middle ages Public information about the park mentions the possibility that there was mediaeval ironworking here. However, no evidence has been found. The method of the period involved digging up an iron ore outcrop and reducing it in a "bloomery" or clay pot-furnace using charcoal and muscle-powered bellows. This exiguous procedure would leave very little archaeological evidence, especially if the slag was scavenged for road making. Crawley was formally founded in 1202 when it received its market charter, and evidence has been found of ironworking on its first burgage tenements. Iron ore outcropped in the clay around Crawley as well as in the sandstone of the park, and there would have been less work to dig it out of the clay. The latter would have also provided the material for making the bloomeries. The first possible reference to Tilgate as a place is in 1296, when a tax return mentions one William Yllegate. This is analysed as "Illan Geat" or "entrance into the forest