Archaeologists have been wowed by the early dates and the evidence, including the size of the tuyere

An iron age workshop, where blacksmiths were forging metal about 2,700 years ago, has been discovered in Oxfordshire, complete with everything from bellows protectors to the tiny bits of metal that flew off as the red hot iron was hammered into shape.

Radiocarbon tests date it between 770BC and 515BC, during the earliest days of ironworking in Britain. From about 800BC, the art of forging iron became widespread in the British Isles for tools and weapons and the iron age takes its name from the mastery of this metal.