pipes, under the name of iron piping,' were got up for the purpose of supplying, in reality, the French with good gun metal. These were taken through a woodland country from Willey down Tarbach Dingle, by means of a tramway he constructed, to the banks of the Severn, where all the apparatus for a powder mill had been provided, to be conveyed away from thence for shipping. Shropshire iron, for such purposes as this, had always been in request, and other firms during the war are said to have sent down blocks of iron under pretence of ballast for shipping, which in reality were for purposes mentioned above. They were taken down by barges to the Bristol Channel, and smuggled on board French vessels. Some of these pipes were no doubt bonâ fide transactions, but others, it is said, were not; and Wilkinson's pipe-making was stopped by the Government, and numbers of pipes remained for years at the warehouse at the bottom of Caughley Dingle." The two sketches of Bersham Works, reproductions of which are herewith appended, were made by Mr. John Westaway Rowe, and are now in the possession of his grand-daughter, Mrs. Robert Parry, of Derwen Lodge, Ruabon Road, Wrexham, who is a daughter of Mr. William Rowe. In the first of the sketches, cannon are lying about in the foreground; behind the boilers is the smith's shop, which is still in existence; on the same side of the river to the far left is the White House, where Mr. William Rowe afterwards lived; on the other side may be noted the octagonal building now used as a barn, and the cottages above the water mill: the blast-furnace, most of which still stands, is too much to the right of the waterfall to come into the picture. In the second sketch, the line of wretched cottages, called "Bunker's Hill," is visible at the top, so that the site of this portion of the works must be that of the disused paper mill which now stands just below the new Bersham Schools. No sooner had John Wilkinson got the Bersham Works into good going order than he began to establish himself in other places. The iron ore that he smelted at Bersham, and the coal wherewith he smelted it, had to be got out of other men's lands. This did not satisfy him. So he gradually acquired various estates, rich in iron and in coal, and bought or set up furnaces elsewhere. It may be well to set forth here a list of all the properties of whatever kind which he thus came to possess, giving, however, a detailed description of those only that were situate within the old parish of Wrexham. He acquired, I believe before 1772, the manor and estate of BRADLEY, in the parish of Bilston, Staffordshire, where he had a large iron house, sundry iron-furnaces and rolling mills, brick works, pottery, canal wharf, many dwelling-houses, and much land. He bought of Mr. Emery the estate of HADLEY, in the parish of Wellington, Shropshire, where were furnaces, a colliery, two farms, and several cottages. He leased of Squire Forester the BROSELEY Furnaces, in the parish of Willey, Shropshire, where he had also a colliery. He owned a considerable property also in ROTHERHITHE, where there were five quays, ten warehouses, etc., and he appears to have rented a wharf at Chester. He had mines of coal and iron-stone at MAES Y GRUG, in the township of Soughton, in the parish of Northop, Flintshire, together with a farmhouse there and fifty acres of land; various mines of coal and iron-stone nearly adjoining Maes y grug, and lead smelting works, called "Llyn y Pandy Works," with four furnaces, in the township of Bistre, and parish of Mold. He had also a lease of four lime kilns, capable of producing 25,000 barrels of lime per annum, which belonged to the representatives of a certain Mr. John Lewis, and were situate at Ffrith, as well as of three other lime kilns on Hope Mountain, Flintshire, near the first four. One of the most curious of his acquisitions was Castlehead, which he converted into the chief place of the Wilson House estate, in the parish of Cartmel, Lan |