Due to the increased demand for iron for casting cannons, the blast furnace came into widespread use in France in the mid 15th century.
The direct ancestor of those used in France and England was in the Namur region, in what is now Wallonia (Belgium). From there, they spread first to the Pays de Bray on the eastern boundary of Normandy and from there to the Weald of Sussex, where the first furnace (called Queenstock) in Buxted was built in about 1491, followed by one at Newbridge in Ashdown Forest in 1496. They remained few in number until about 1530 but many were built in the following decades in the Weald, where the iron industry perhaps reached its peak about 1590. Most of the pig iron from these furnaces was taken to finery forges for the production of bar iron.
The first British furnaces outside the Weald appeared during the 1550s, and many were built in the remainder of that century and the following ones. The output of the industry probably peaked about 1620, and was followed by a slow decline until the early 18th century. This was apparently because it was more economic to import iron from Sweden and elsewhere than to make it in some more remote British locations. Charcoal that was economically available to the industry was probably being consumed as fast as the wood to make it grew.
The first blast furnace in Russia opened in 1637 near Tula and was called the Gorodishche Works. The blast furnace spread from there to central Russia and then finally to the Urals.