Dud Dudley's Metallum Martis
Printed first in 1665, this publication is the authors own description of his production of Iron using Pit-coal, beginning in 1618, and the subsequent ill-fortunes he suffered. (The spelling & grammar is as in the original document, which is very inconsistent)

INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY - Iron Workers and Tool Makers - by Samuel Smiles (1863 first edition)

Andrew Yarranton's Map of the Stour Navigation
During the 1660's Andrew Yarranton, a retired Parliamentary Army Captain working as an Iron-Master at Shrawley in Worcestershire, proposed and obtained an Act of Parliament to make the River Stour Navigable between Stourbridge & the River Severn at Mitton (Stourport).

Iron Works in the Stour Valley during the 17th and 18th Centuries
From the Accounts of Philip Foley's Stour Valley Iron Works 1668-1674, Dud Dudley, Andrew Yarranton, and Yates 1775 Map of Staffordshire.

Ironworks 1690-1717 shown in Foley accounts
An update of a map from "Ironworks at the End of the Charcoal era", B.L.C. Johnson 1953

Map of Stour Valley Iron Works during the 17th & 18th Centuries

Extract fom Yates Map of Staffordshire 1775

Canals & the Coal-field

Ironworks Leased from the Dudley Estate 1836 & 1844
From Estate records

Extract from the Parliamentary Report into the building of the O.W.W.R. Railway
Iron works which could be served by the proposed railway and their estimated weekly production figures.

Collieries in the Stour Valley
By no means a definitive guide to all the collieries, this database of mines & collieries in the Valley is compiled from numerous sources.

The Black Country Museum
A personal view.