Map showing the number of Norden names found in the IGI by shire
Inset showing Norden males appearing before 1600

This study indicates that the Nordens arrived in England at the ports of London, Kent and Sussex in very early times. Given that the Norden Y DNA taken from the decendants of East Sussex is idnetified as I1a m253+ which indicates a linage originating from Eastern Denmark and closely associated with Viking incursions suggests that the Nordens were Normans and came to England with William the Conqueror in 1066.

Noteable is the fact that Nordens did not venture very far West or North of their enty point. This may suggest a seafaring family. Something the Norden crest also suggests.

The Norden population of Cambridge is particularly interesting. The earliest dates are all at Balsham, which is 2 miles SE of Cambridge. I really don't have an explanation of why there are so many Nordens here, but it must have something to do with the University. The earliest Norden is Richard Norden b.1577. After that is apparently his son, Richard b.1599. This is the period when Sidney college was founded to train the priests of the new Anglican Church.

Another interesting Norden hot spot is Devon. However, this may be an entirely different family because many of the names are Nordon. In Northern England Nordin is found, but this is believed to be a different family also.

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Warbleton

Thomas Norden (b.abt 1486) (will) 27 May 1551 Warbleton,
Richard Norden (b.abt 1538) (died) 30 Oct 1603 Warbleton (Warbleton-burial record)
Robert Norden (b.abt 1551) (will) 8 Oct 1616, Warbleton

----- ----- ----- Elinor Nordan (b.abt 1579); (married) 1604 Warbleton, England (IGI)
----- ----- ----- -- /husband Nickolas Sagar (IGI)
----- ----- ----- Thomas Norten (b.abt 1577) Warbleton married 1607
----- ----- ----- -- /wife Jonne Barnet widow
----- ----- ----- -- /wife Priesilla Longly 1612
----- ----- ----- Robert Norden (b.abt 1585) Married Warbleton (IGI)
----- ----- ----- -- /wife Elizabeth Morice 07 AUG 1615 (IGI)
----- ----- ----- ----- Robert Norden (b.21 Apr 1605) father/ Robert (IGI)
----- ----- ----- Elizabeth Norden - (b.abt 1592) (Married) 28 APR 1617 Warbleton (IGI)
----- ----- ----- -- /husband James Poomey (IGI)
----- ----- ----- ----- ----- Rebeccah Norden spinster living in Warbleton 10 May 1717
----- ----- ----- ----- ----- Richard Norden (b.abt 1690) (died) 21 Mar 1756 (Warbleton-burial record)

________________________________________________________________________________________

un-assigned
xx- ----- ----- ----- ----- Amos Norden (b.abt 1667) 21 May 1702 of Waldron, 1712, 1713 Warburton
----- ----- ----- ----- ----- /wife Mary Walker (daughter of John Walker, of Warbleton, clothworker and Elizabeth Walker

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- Phillip Norden (b.abt 1643)(died) 22 Dec 1708 Heathfield All Saints burial record
----- ----- ----- ----- ----- Samuel Norden (died) 12 Apr 1722 Mayfield - Heathfield All Saints burial record

NORDEN unknown 16 Apr 1609 widow Waldron
NORDEN unknown died 06 Dec 1678 widow Waldron

----- ----- ----- ----- John Norden )b.abt 1616) (died) 10 Sep 1681 Heathfield
----- ----- ----- ----- Jane Norden (b.abt 1615) (suit) 1650, Walsingham Heathfield

Source marriages sussex

Norden Arms

“argent, on a fesse Gules between three sea-horses sable
a cross crosslet fitchy between two trefoils slipped of the first” – Norden, Kent.

Fess - Military belt or girdle of honour; represents readiness to serve the public
Gules - Warrior or martyr; Military strength and magnanimity
Seahorse - Readiness for all employments for king and country (Hippocampus or the Steeds of Neptune) A common symbolic image among sea-farers, and in heraldry. The sea-horse is an emblem of safe travel, particularly by sea. The heraldic sea-horse, however, does not resemble the natural seahorse at all. It is an imaginary creature with the head, chest and forelegs of a horse, webbed feet like a frog in place of its hooves and a scaled body that flows into the large powerful tail of a fish, which if properly drawn, circles around itself in a coil. The mane may or may not be scalloped. It is a popular symbol found quite regularly in heraldry.
Trefoil - Perpetuity. The trefoil is a three leaved plant, resembling a three-leafed clover, usually shown slipped (with a stem at the bottom). It is a symbol of perpetuity, with the three leaves representing the past, present and future. It is also sometimes a symbol of fertility and abundance.
Cross - Faith; Christianity; Service in the Crusades. The cross is a common heraldic device that signifies the Christian faith of the bearer. It was a popular symbol during the crusades, and it is said that during the first Crusades the principle nations of Christendom were distinguished by different colored crosses.
Crosslet - Signifies the fourfold mystery of the cross
Cross Crosslet Fitchy - A combination of cross and sword; unshakeable faith

Beaver - Industry and perseverance. The beaver denotes industry, perseverance and determination. It was officially adopted as Canada's national symbol in an Act passed by the Canadian Parliament in 1975, and is most often found in arms granted to families connected in some way to Canada.

Plague notes
1590 (Rye) 1664 (London)
"At the beginning of the year [1603], there were about 4,000 people in Lancelot Andrew's parish. By December 1603, 2,878 of them had been killed by the disease [plague]."

" Leonard Gale was born in 1620 at Riverhead, near Sevenoaks, where his father pursued the trade of a blacksmith. When the youth had reached his seventeenth year, his father and mother, with five of their sons and daughters, died of the plague, Leonard and his brother being the only members of the family that survived. "

Puritan Naming Warbleton
"Bancroft himself had written about the absurdity of calling your children ?The Lord-is-near, More-trial, Reformation, More-fruit, Dust and many other such-like.? These were not invented. Puritan children at Warbleton in Sussex, the heartland of this practice laboured under the names of Eschew-evil, Lament, No-merit, Sorry-for-sin, Learn-wisdom, Faint-not, Give-thanks, and the most popular, Sin-deny, which was landed on ten children baptized between 1586 and 1596. One family, the children of the curate Thomas Hely, would have been introduced by their proud father as Much-mercy Hely, Increased Hely, Sin-deny Hely, Fear-not Hely and sweet little Constance Hely." source

History of Iron and Steel making in Sussux

Steel was also manufactured at several places in the county, more particularly at Steel-Forge Land, Warbleton, and at Robertsbridge. The steel was said to be of good quality, resembling Swedish--both alike depending for their excellence on the exclusive use of charcoal in smelting the ore,--iron so produced maintaining its superiority over coal-smelted iron to this day.

When cannon came to be employed in war, the nearness of Sussex to London and the Cinque Forts gave it a great advantage over the remoter iron-producing districts in the north and west of England, and for a long time the iron-works of this county enjoyed almost a monopoly of the manufacture. The metal was still too precious to be used for cannon balls, which were hewn of stone from quarries on Maidstone Heath. Iron was only available, and that in limited quantities, for the fabrication of the cannon themselves, and wrought-iron was chiefly used for the purpose. An old mortar which formerly lay on Eridge Green, near Frant, is said to have been the first mortar made in England;*

Archaeologia, vol. x. 472. only the chamber was cast, while the tube consisted of bars strongly hooped together. Although the local distich says that

"Master Huggett and his man John They did cast the first cannon,"

there is every reason to believe that both cannons and mortars were made in Sussex before Huggett's time; the old hooped guns in the Tower being of the date of Henry VI. The first cast-iron cannons of English manufacture were made at Buxtead, in Sussex, in 1543, by Ralph Hogge, master founder, who employed as his principal assistant one Peter Baude, a Frenchman. Gun-founding was a French invention, and Mr. Lower supposes that Hogge brought over Baude from France to teach his workmen the method of casting the guns. About the same time Hogge employed a skilled Flemish gunsmith named Peter Van Collet, who, according to Stowe, "devised or caused to be made certain mortar pieces, being at the mouth from eleven to nine inches wide, for the use whereof the said Peter caused to be made certain hollow shot of cast-iron to be stuffed with fyrework, whereof the bigger sort for the same has screws of iron to receive a match to carry fyre for to break in small pieces the said hollow shot, whereof the smallest piece hitting a man would kill or spoil him." In short, Peter Van Collet here introduced the manufacture of the explosive shell in the form in which it continued to be used down to our own day.

Baude, the Frenchman, afterwards set up business on his own account, making many guns, both of brass and iron, some of which are still preserved in the Tower.*

One of these, 6 1/2 feet long, and of 2 1/2 inches bore, manufactured in 1543, bears the cast inscription of Petrus Baude Gallus operis artifex. Other workmen, learning the trade from him, also began to manufacture on their own account; one of Baude's servants, named John Johnson, and after him his son Thomas, becoming famous for the excellence of their cast-iron guns. The Hogges continued the business for several generations, and became a wealthy county family. Huggett was another cannon maker of repute; and Owen became celebrated for his brass culverins. Mr. Lower mentions, as a curious instance of the tenacity with which families continue to follow a particular vocation, that many persons of the name of Huggett still carry on the trade of blacksmith in East Sussex. But most of the early workmen at the Sussex iron-works, as in other branches of skilled industry in England during the sixteenth century, were foreigners-- Flemish and French--many of whom had taken refuge in this country from the religious persecutions then raging abroad, while others, of special skill, were invited over by the iron manufacturers to instruct their workmen in the art of metal-founding.*

Mr. Lower says," Many foreigners were brought over to carry on the works; which perhaps may account for the number of Frenchmen and Germans whose names appear in our parish registers about the middle of the sixteenth century ."-- Contributions to Literature, 108.

As much wealth was gained by the pursuit of the revived iron manufacture in Sussex, iron-mills rapidly extended over the ore-yielding district. The landed proprietors entered with zeal into this new branch of industry, and when wood ran short, they did not hesitate to sacrifice their ancestral oaks to provide fuel for the furnaces. Mr. Lower says even the most ancient families, such as the Nevilles, Howards, Percys, Stanleys, Montagues, Pelhams, Ashburnhams, Sidneys, Sackvilles, Dacres, and Finches, prosecuted the manufacture with all the apparent ardour of Birmingham and Wolverhampton men in modern times. William Penn, the courtier Quaker, had iron-furnaces at Hawkhurst and other places in Sussex. The ruins of the Ashburnham forge, situated a few miles to the north-east of Battle, still serve to indicate the extent of the manufacture. At the upper part of the valley in which the works were situated, an artificial lake was formed by constructing an embankment across the watercourse descending from the higher ground,* [footnote ... The embankment and sluices of the furnace-pond at the upper part of the valley continue to be maintained, the lake being used by the present Lord Ashburnham as a preserve for fish and water-fowl. and thus a sufficient fall of water was procured for the purpose of blowing the furnaces, the site of which is still marked by surrounding mounds of iron cinders and charcoal waste. Three quarters of a mile lower down the valley stood the forge, also provided with water-power for working the hammer; and some of the old buildings are still standing, among others the boring-house, of small size, now used as an ordinary labourer's cottage, where the guns were bored. The machine was a mere upright drill worked by the water-wheel, which was only eighteen inches across the breast. The property belonged, as it still does, to the Ashburnham family, who are said to have derived great wealth from the manufacture of guns at their works, which were among the last carried on in Sussex. The Ashburnham iron was distinguished for its toughness, and was said to be equal to the best Spanish or Swedish iron.

Many new men also became enriched, and founded county families; the Fuller family frankly avowing their origin in the singular motto of Carbone et forcipibus--literally, by charcoal and tongs.*

Reminding one of the odd motto assumed by Gillespie, the tobacconist of Edinburgh, founder of Gillespie's Hospital, on whose carriage-panels was emblazoned a Scotch mull, with the motto,

"Wha wad ha' thocht it, That noses could ha' bought it!"

It is just possible that the Fullers may have taken their motto from the words employed by Juvenal in describing the father of Demosthenes, who was a blacksmith and a sword-cutler --

"Quem pater ardentis massae fuligine lippus, A carbone et forcipibus gladiosque parante Incude et luteo Vulcano ad rhetora misit."

Men then went into Sussex to push their fortunes at the forges, as they now do in Wales or Staffordshire; and they succeeded then, as they do now, by dint of application, industry, and energy. The Sussex Archaeological Papers for 1860 contain a curious record of such an adventurer, in the history of the founder of the Gale family. Leonard Gale was born in 1620 at Riverhead, near Sevenoaks, where his father pursued the trade of a blacksmith. When the youth had reached his seventeenth year, his father and mother, with five of their sons and daughters, died of the plague, Leonard and his brother being the only members of the family that survived. The patrimony of 200L. left them was soon spent; after which Leonard paid off his servants, and took to work diligently at his father's trade. Saving a little money, he determined to go down into Sussex, where we shortly find him working the St. Leonard's Forge, and afterwards the Tensley Forge near Crawley, and the Cowden Iron-works, which then bore a high reputation. After forty years' labour, he accumulated a good fortune, which he left to his son of the same name, who went on iron-forging, and eventually became a county gentleman, owner of the house and estate of Crabbett near Worth, and Member of Parliament for East Grinstead.

Several of the new families, however, after occupying a high position in the county, again subsided into the labouring class, illustrating the Lancashire proverb of "Twice clogs, once boots," the sons squandering what the father's had gathered, and falling back into the ranks again. Thus the great Fowles family of Riverhall disappeared altogether from Sussex. One of them built the fine mansion of Riverhall, noble even in decay. Another had a grant of free warren from King James over his estates in Wadhurst, Frant, Rotherfield, and Mayfield. Mr. Lower says the fourth in descent from this person kept the turnpike-gate at Wadhurst, and that the last of the family, a day-labourer, emigrated to America in 1839, carrying with him, as the sole relic of his family greatness, the royal grant of free warren given to his ancestor. The Barhams and Mansers were also great iron-men, officiating as high sheriffs of the county at different times, and occupying spacious mansions. One branch of these families terminated, Mr. Lower says, with Nicholas Barham, who died in the workhouse at Wadhurst in 1788; and another continues to be represented by a wheelwright at Wadhurst of the same name.

The iron manufacture of Sussex reached its height towards the close of the reign of Elizabeth, when the trade became so prosperous that, instead of importing iron, England began to export it in considerable quantities, in the shape of iron ordnance. Sir Thomas Leighton and Sir Henry Neville had obtained patents from the queen, which enabled them to send their ordnance abroad, the conseqnence of which was that the Spaniards were found arming their ships and fighting us with guns of our own manufacture. Sir Walter Raleigh, calling attention to the subject in the House of Commons, said, "I am sure heretofore one ship of Her Majesty's was able to beat ten Spaniards, but now, by reason of our own ordnance, we are hardly matcht one to one." Proclamations were issued forbidding the export of iron and brass ordnance, and a bill was brought into Parliament to put a stop to the trade; but, not withstanding these prohibitions, the Sussex guns long continued to be smuggled out of the country in considerable numbers. "It is almost incredible," says Camden, "how many guns are made of the iron in this county. Count Gondomar (the Spanish ambassador) well knew their goodness when he so often begged of King James the boon to export them." Though the king refused his sanction, it appears that Sir Anthony Shirley of Weston, an extensive iron-master, succeeded in forwarding to the King of Spain a hundred pieces of cannon.

So active were the Sussex manufacturers, and so brisk was the trade they carried on, that during the reign of James I. it is supposed one-half of the whole quantity of iron produced in England was made there. Simon Sturtevant, in his 'Treatise of Metallica,' published in 1612, estimates the whole number of iron-mills in England and Wales at 800, of which, he says, "there are foure hundred milnes in Surry, Kent, and Sussex, as the townsmen of Haslemere have testified and numbered unto me. But the townsmen of Haslemere must certainly have been exaggerating, unless they counted smiths' and farriers' shops in the number of iron-mills. About the same time that Sturtevant's treatise was published, there appeared a treatise entitled the 'Surveyor's Dialogue,' by one John Norden, the object of which was to make out a case against the iron-works and their being allowed to burn up the timber of the country for fuel. Yet Norden does not make the number of iron-works much more than a third of Sturtevant's estimate. He says, "I have heard that there are or lately were in Sussex neere 140 hammers and furnaces for iron, and in it and Surrey adjoining three or four glasse-houses." Even the smaller number stated by Norden, however, shows that Sussex was then regarded as the principal seat of the iron-trade. Camden vividly describes the noise and bustle of the manufacture--the working of the heavy hammers, which, "beating upon the iron, fill the neighbourhood round about, day and night, with continual noise." These hammers were for the most part worked by the power of water, carefully stored in the artificial "Hammer-ponds" above described. The hammer-shaft was usually of ash, about 9 feet long, clamped at intervals with iron hoops. It was worked by the revolutions of the water-wheel, furnished with projecting arms or knobs to raise the hammer, which fell as each knob passed, the rapidity of its action of course depending on the velocity with which the water-wheel revolved. The forge-blast was also worked for the most part by water-power. Where the furnaces were small, the blast was produced by leather bellows worked by hand, or by a horse walking in a gin. The foot-blasts of the earlier iron-smelters were so imperfect that but a small proportion of the ore was reduced, so that the iron-makers of later times, more particularly in the Forest of Dean, instead of digging for ironstone, resorted to the beds of ancient scoriae for their principal supply of the mineral.

Notwithstanding the large number of furnaces in blast throughout the county of Sussex at the period we refer to, their produce was comparatively small, and must not be measured by the enormous produce of modern iron-works; for while an iron-furnace of the present day will easily turn out 150 tons of pig per week, the best of the older furnaces did not produce more than from three to four tons. One of the last extensive contracts executed in Sussex was the casting of the iron rails which enclose St. Paul's Cathedral. The contract was thought too large for one iron-master to undertake, and it was consequently distributed amongst several contractors, though the principal part of the work was executed at Lamberhurst, near Tunbridge Wells. But to produce the comparatively small quantity of iron turned out by the old works, the consumption of timber was enormous; for the making of every ton of pig-iron required four loads of timber converted into charcoal fuel, and the making of every ton of bar-iron required three additional loads. Thus, notwithstanding the indispensable need of iron, the extension of the manufacture, by threatening the destruction of the timber of the southern counties, came to be regarded in the light of a national calamity. Up to a certain point, the clearing of the Weald of its dense growth of underwood had been of advantage, by affording better opportunities for the operations of agriculture. But the "voragious iron-mills" were proceeding to swallow up everything that would burn, and the old forest growths were rapidly disappearing. An entire wood was soon exhausted, and long time was needed before it grew again. At Lamberhurst alone, though the produce was only about five tons of iron a-week, the annual consumption of wood was about 200,000 cords! Wood continued to be the only material used for fuel generally--a strong prejudice existing against the use of sea-coal for domestic purposes.*

It was then believed that sea or pit-coal was poisonous when burnt in dwellings, and that it was especially injurious to the human complexion. All sorts of diseases were attributed to its use, and at one time it was even penal to burn it. The Londoners only began to reconcile themselves to the use of coal when the wood within reach of the metropolis had been nearly all burnt up, and no other fuel was to be had. It therefore began to be feared that there would be no available fuel left within practicable reach of the metropolis; and the contingency of having to face the rigorous cold of an English winter without fuel naturally occasioning much alarm, the action of the Government was deemed necessary to remedy the apprehended evil.

To check the destruction of wood near London, an Act was passed in 1581 prohibiting its conversion into fuel for the making of iron within fourteen miles of the Thames, forbidding the erection of new ironworks within twenty-two miles of London, and restricting the number of works in Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, beyond the above limits. Similar enactments were made in future Parliaments with the same object, which had the effect of checking the trade, and several of the Sussex ironmasters were under the necessity of removing their works elsewhere. Some of them migrated to Glamorganshire, in South Wales, because of the abundance of timber as well as ironstone in that quarter, and there set up their forges, more particularly at Aberdare and Merthyr Tydvil. Mr. Llewellin has