Sir Basil Brooke (1576-1646), metallurgist and recusant, inherited the manor of Madeley from his father. This contained iron and steel works and coal mines. The coal mines had been worked in his father's time, coal being transported on the river Severn to cities and towns from Shrewsbury to Gloucester. Madeley is a district of Telford, in Shropshire. ... Shrewsbury (pronounced either /ˈʃɹuːzbɹiː/ or /ˈʃɹəʊzbɹiː/) is a town of 70,059 [1] in Shropshire, England. ... Gloucester (pronounced ) is a city and district in south-west England, close to the Welsh border. ...

About 1615, he obtained an interest in a patent for making steel by the cementation process. This led to his building steel furnaces at Coalbrookdale, which certainly existed by the 1640s, and perhaps from 1615. The patent contained a clause prohibiting the import of steel, but he was unable to meet demand and was required to surrender his patent, but he evidently continued making steel, probably using iron from the Forest of Dean, though this was subsequently found not to be quite the best raw material. The cementation process is a obsolete technique for making steel. ... It has been suggested that Old Furnace, Ironbridge be merged into this article or section. ...

In 1615, he and Richard Chaldecott of London took over two furnaces and a forge of the king's ironworks in the Forest of Dean, but in 1618, they were accused of illegal felling and their lease was suspended. The same accusation was made against the next farmers, but their lease was allowed to run its course. Brooke (with George Mynne and Thomas Hackett) leased all the king's works (four furnaces and three forges, but in 1633, new claims were made that the ironworks were having a disastrous effect on the Forest. By that stage they had build one or two more forges adjoining the Forest. Their lease was suspended, and at the following enquiry at the Forest Eyre, he and his partner were fined heavily, being deprived of their lease, and the works were let to others. The fine was subsequently abated somewhat. Every farmer of these works was accused of misfeasance; it is not clear that Brooke and his partners did anything wrong, or anything worse than any other farmer. It has been suggested that Old Furnace, Ironbridge be merged into this article or section. ... Iron tapped from the blast furnace is pig iron, and contains significant amounts of carbon and silicon. ... The (Royal) Forest of Dean is a region in the county of Gloucestershire, England. ...

Sir Basil probably had ironworks at Coalbrookdale on his own estate of Madeley. There was a 'smithy', that is a bloomery forge there when Wenlock Abbey was dissolved, but how long this continued in use remains unknown. However it is likely that there were (at least) forges there in his time. He certainly had ironworks somewhere in Shropshire in 1622, including Bromleys Forge near the mouth of the River Perry. He and his ironworks partners were also concerned in Shelsley Forge (in Shelsley Walsh). It has been suggested that Old Furnace, Ironbridge be merged into this article or section. ... Madeley is a district of Telford, in Shropshire. ... A bloomery is a type of furnace once widely used for smelting iron from its oxides. ... The River Perry is a river in Shropshire, England. ... Shelsley Walsh is a small village in Worcestershire, England. ...

Brooke, Mynne, and Hackett were also farmers of the Company of Mineral and Battery Works wireworks at Tintern from (or by) 1627, Hackett having been farmer since 1613. Brooke remained a farmer until his sequestration during the Civil War. The River Wye viewed from a former railway bridge with Tintern village in the background Tintern is a village on the River Wye in Monmouthshire, Wales, close to the border with England, at Grid reference SO530000. ... Sequestration, the act of removing, separating or seizing anything from the possession of its owner, particularly in law, of the taking possession of property under process of law for the benefit of creditors or the state. ... The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations which took place between Parliamentarians and Royalists from 1642 until 1651. ...

Brooke was also one of the leading English Roman Catholics of his time, and was said to have personal contact with James I and Charles I. In 1635, he supported the Catholic clergy against Anglican episcopal oversight. He was treasurer for contributions collected from English Catholics towards the cost of the Bishops Wars of 1639-40. In 1641, he was summoned by the House of Commons, but fled and was arrested at York and imprisoned in London. Late in 1643, he was implicated in a plot to divide Parliament and the City of London authorities with a view to preventing the Scottish army taking part on the English Civil War. His correspondence was discovered and on 6 January 1644, he was imprisoned again. His estate was sequestrated in 1645 as a papist delinquent. He died on 31 December 1646, leaving debts of £10,000 and an estate worth £300 p.a. His wife was Etheldreda Brudenell, daughter of Sir Edmund Brudenell. His son Thomas later recovered his estate, which passed down the family for several generations. The Church of England is the officially established Christian church[1] in England, and acts as the mother and senior branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion, as well as a founding member of the Porvoo Communion. ... The Bishops Wars, a series of armed encounters and defiances between England and Scotland in 1639 and 1640, were part of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. ... The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. ... States currently utilizing parliamentary systems are denoted in orange and red—the former being constitutional monarchies where authority is vested in a parliament, and the latter being parliamentary republics whose parliaments are effectively supreme over a separate head of state. ... London (pronounced ) is the capital city of England and of the United Kingdom. ... The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations which took place between Parliamentarians and Royalists from 1642 until 1651. ... January 6 is the 6th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... // Events February to August - Explorer Abel Tasmans second expedition for the Dutch East India Company maps the north coast of Australia. ... December 31 is the 365th day of the year (366th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... // Events The Westminster Confession of Faith Ongoing events Wars of the Three Kingdoms, including the English Civil War (1642-1649) Births February 4 - Hans Erasmus Aßmann, Freiherr von Abschatz, German statesman and poet (d. ...

Further reading

• C. Hart, Industrial History of the Forest of Dean (1971), 10-14.
• P. W. King, 'The cartel in oregrounds iron' Journal of Industrial History 6 (2003), 28-9.
• H. W. Paar and D. G. Tucker, 'The old wireworks and ironworks of the Angidy valley at Tintern, Gwent' Historical Metallurgy 9(1) (1975), 1-14.
• Martyn Bennett, 'Brooke , Sir Basil (1576–1646)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 (article 3528).