Fuller Guns

While researching the Fuller's ironfounding history I got interested in tracking down any surviving guns that were made at their Heathfield Forge. From as early as 1693 until 1763 the Fullers made hundreds, if not thousands, of cannons ranging from 1-pounders to 24-pounders in size.

So far I have found: a 1-pounder at Anne of Cleves House at Lewes, Sussex; two 24-pounders at Firepower - The Royal Artillery Museum, Woolwich; two or more guns at the Tower of London; a 4-pounder recovered from the wreck of Blackbeard's flagship the Queen Anne's Revenge now at the North Carolina Maritime Museum; a gun that was reclaimed from the wreck of English merchant slave ship the Henrietta Marie now in the collection of the Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Museum, Key West, Florida.
I have some evidence that there is a Fuller gun at Dover Castle.

Any help in locating cannons made at the Heathfield Forge, Sussex by the Fuller family would be gratefully received.
Many thanks to: Les Smith at Firepower - The Royal Artillery Museum, Woolwich; Nathan Henry, Assistant State Archaeologist and Conservator, Underwater Archaeology Branch North Carolina Office of State Archaeology; Mark Wilde-Ramsing, Project Manager, Queen Anne's Revenge Shipwreck Unit; Friends of Dover Castle

One Pounder Cannon - c. 1749

"The initials IF of the trunnion normally represent John Fuller of Heathfield 1706-1755 but this may be one of the small guns cast by W & G Jukes of Robertsbridge Abbey Furnace. The Jukes[sometimes Jewkes] were commissioned by Fuller to supply him with a number of small iron guns but they forged his initials on the trunnions which led Fuller - a founder of repute - to terminate the contract. The second reinforce bears a shield with a cornet above the letters D probably relating to the first Duke of Dorset, Lionel Cranfield Sackville (1688-1765) who was Variously Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Constable of Dover Castle and Warden of the Cinque Ports and whose family has long associations with the Weald and Sheffield Park."

Source: Anne of Cleves House Museum, Lewes, East Sussex

Turner's Painful Memory Displayed for First Time

By Arifa Akbar Published: 30 June 2007
J M W Turner was not just known as a prodigious water-colourist and landscape painter in his lifetime. He was also famed among his nearest and dearest as a bit of a miser.
But now a sketch is going on sale that tells a very different story of the artist: one of close friendship, warmth and generosity. Figures by a fishing boat hauled up on the beach at Brighton was given away by the artist. Now it is priced at £95,000.
The friend who received the sketch as a gift was astonished when Turner handed over the image. Years later, it transpired that the portrayal of the fishing boat on Brighton beach in Turner's sketchbook reminded the artist of the death of his closest friend and that he could not bear to keep it.
Figures by a fishing boat is believed to date from 1824, when Turner made a series of preparatory studies in the southern coastal town.
The work went on sale at Agnew's Gallery in Old Bond Street, London, yesterday, when an exhibition opened entitled Master Drawings, which includes the sketch and many others which have never before been viewed by the public. The work will be exhibited until 6 July.
Turner took the sketchbook, complete with his Brighton sketches, to Yorkshire in the autumn of 1824 to make some local studies while visiting his closest friend, Walter Fawkes, near Otley, North Yorkshire.
But it was to be the artist's last visit to Fawkes, a landowner and MP who had built up a large collection of Turner's work. Fawkes died some months later, in 1825, and the half-filled sketchbook was put to one side by a grief-stricken Turner.
Read full article here.
(Brighton from the Sea by JMW Turner circa 1829)

250th Anniversary Celebration

Exciting things are being planned in the village of Brightling, East Sussex for the 250th Anniversary Celebration of Mad Jack Fuller.
22nd September 2007 will see Geoff Hutchinson bringing the character back to life and telling his story, once again, in the Church.
Provisional sponsorship for the day has been secured from Harveys of Lewes.

A timetable for the day has been outlined:

11.00 – 13.45 Sussex Bell Ringing Association will perform a quarter peel
14.00 – 15.00 Geoff Hutchinson ‘Mad Jack’ Fuller talk in Church
15.00 – 15.30 Barrel Organ
15.30 – 16.30 Follies Walk
16.30 – 17.30 Mad Jack Morris in front of Brightling Park
17.30 – 18.00 Brightling’s own bell ringers will show how it is done!
19.00 – to late Good Squeeze dancing and singing - Pay Bar and BBQ

More information will be posted as it becomes available.

Dallington “Six miles from everywhere”:

The history of a Sussex village
By Karen Bryant-Mole 1999.

Chapter: Buildings of Interest
The Sugar Loaf, Pp 96-97

'This unusual building is situated next to the main Heathfield to Battle road, due east of the playing field. It is the only one of Jack Fuller’s follies to fall within the parish of Dallington. Jack Fuller was an M.P. in the first decade of the nineteenth century and was also the wealthy owner of Rose Hill (now Brightling Park) and its estate. He has been variously portrayed as eccentric, extravagant, benevolent and outspoken. One thing is for certain and that is that he enjoyed a good party.
The traditional tale of the Sugar Loaf is that during one such party he wagered that the spire of Dallington church could be seen from his home, Rose Hill. When he found that this was not so he ordered the conical building to be constructed, some say overnight, in order to fool his guests and win the bet. The exact date of its construction is not known but it is possibly around 1822. Jack Fuller later had the building converted into a labourer’s cottage. It is thought that Simeon Crouch and his family may have lived in the Sugar Loaf in the late 1870s, as family members have been told that one of his daughters, Mabel, was born there in 1879. Relatives of the Lulham family are believed to have been the last people to live in the Sugar Loaf. The stone building had two storeys, with windows on each floor. There was a ladder between the two floors and there was also a lean-to kitchen.
Local people recall that during the Second World War it was used as an anti-invasion machine gun post. Over the ensuing years, the abandoned building began to fall into disrepair. However a newspaper article of 1955 states that although ‘crumbling to a ruin’. The Sugar Loaf was ‘still a magnet to thousands of tourists every summer’.
The Sugar Loaf is situated on land that used to fro part of Christmas Farm. In the 1950s, Dennis Baker bought Christmas Farm form the Brightling Estate and in 1962 he donated the Sugar Loaf to the local council. '

Across Sussex With Belloc:

In the Footsteps of 'The Four Men'
By Bob Copper ISBN 07 509 06030


“At Oxley’s Green an isolated forge and blacksmith’s shop lies back from the road on the right-hand side and soon after, the sign of the inn situated at a crossroads tells us sustenance is at hand. it is the life-size figure of the gallant Jack Fuller himself, at one time squire of this parish, complete with top hat and umbrella, for this is the Fuller’s Arms, now called Jack Fuller’s , where Belloc and Grizzlebeard fell in with the Sailor..” pp 7

“The landlord greeted me at the door, a friendly man in a striped apron, which spike of close association with the kitchen. The inn is well over half a mile outside Brightling itself and was opened here, converted from an old barn, by the redoubtable Fuller to replace the one in the village. The public life of the Green \man in the village street, it appears, was terminated by the advocates of abstinence and piety because its proximity to the church opposite seemed adversely to affect the size of the Sunday congregations. Not a very subtle approach, it could be said, to this age-old problem, and none is left wondering if this somewhat costly and clumsy attempt to load the dice against the devil actually worked.” pp 8.

“On my first walk I had stuck to the original route and at Wood’s Corner had come out on the Heathfield road, which at the time was very quiet. I had also diverted and walked a couple of hundred yards east of the Swan Inn and taken a close look at the Sugar Loaf, a conical building some thirty feet high standing in a meadow with no obvious practical use. You can still visit it today. There is a door and several windows, all but one of which have been blocked up, and it is reputed to have been lived in by an old man who brought up his family there. It is also said that it was once the refugee of a hermit, but this must refer to a different incumbent and probably and earlier period. It would be quite impossible for one man to combine two such diverse roles, particularly with in such a confined space.” pp11