The open space of the court had mostly been claimed by one faction or another and filled up with works both prodigal and practical. There were too many furnaces and forges to count at a glance, all of them quite small, and devoted to some sub-sub-specialty. These were fashioned of brick and mortar, each to a particular shape, reminding the visitors of so many shells cast up on some outlandish beach. There was a crane, moved by two men each trudging along in a great wooden wheel. This was situated in the back of the court where a gate led in from a warren of country cowpaths, none of which had yet been ennobled with a picturesque name. The court was further enlivened by diverse derricks, rigs, presses, frames, and Overhead Lifting Devices of unknown nature and purpose. There was even a barrow: a stony hummock that might have deserved the appellation of Ruin half a millennium ago, but had by now been mostly resorbed by the earth.