Surrey
Surrey's most significant source of prosperity in the later Middle Ages was the production of woollen cloth, which emerged during that period as England's main export industry. The county was an early centre of English textile manufacturing, benefiting from the presence of deposits of fuller's earth, the rare mineral composite important in the process of finishing cloth, around Reigate and Nutfield. The industry in Surrey was focused on Guildford, which gave its name to a variety of cloth, "gilforte", which was exported widely across Europe and the Middle East and imitated by manufacturers elsewhere in Europe. However, as the English cloth industry expanded, Surrey was outstripped by other growing regions of production.
Though Surrey was not the scene of serious fighting in the various rebellions and civil wars of the period, armies from Kent heading for London via Southwark passed through what were then the extreme north-eastern fringes of Surrey during the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 and Cade's Rebellion in 1450, and at various stages of the Wars of the Roses in 1460, 1469 and 1471. The upheaval of 1381 also involved widespread local unrest in Surrey, as was the case all across south-eastern England, and some recruits from Surrey joined the Kentish rebel army.
South West England
Centrax make industrial gas turbines in Newton Abbot; to the north-west, on the A38 at the A382 junction at Heathfield in Bovey Tracey, British Ceramic Tile have the largest ceramic tile plant in Europe. Suttons Seeds is in Paignton; AVX, off the A3022, was a worldwide site for tantalum capacitors, until the company moved production to the Czech Republic in 2009. Britannia Royal Naval College is at Dartmouth.
HMNB Devonport (HMS Drake, the largest naval base in western Europe) is in Plymouth. Toshiba had a large presence in Ernesettle, in the north Plymouth of, which was the second largest employer after the Royal Navy, until they moved production of televisions to Kobierzyce in Poland in 2009; it made its last television at the site on 27 August 2009; Vispring (beds) is next to Kawasaki Precision Machinery. Snowbee make fishing tackle. 3 Commando Brigade is at Stonehouse Barracks. The Range (home and leisure) is on the B3432 in Estover east of Plymouth Airport; opposite is Fine Tubes and further east Barden make ball-bearings for the aerospace industry; on the furthest east of the industrial estate, Wrigley Company UK; its "Extra" brand is the second best-selling confectionery in the UK after "Dairy Milk".
X-Fab UK (semiconductor fabrication plant, former Plessey Semiconductors) is next to the A386 Bickleigh Cross roundabout; nearby BD have a large plant making medical vacutainers (for blood samples) on Belliver Way Ind Est in the north of Plymouth; south of BD off the B3373 in Southway is Silicon Sensing Systems (who make vibrating structure gyroscopes and are owned by UTC Aerospace Systems, previously BAE Systems, and BAe Dynamics, who had made nose cones for aircraft including Concorde), and Schneider Electric UK (Drayton Controls, market-leading thermostatic radiator valves for central heating, previously owned by Invensys Controls UK). North of Plymouth in Bickleigh (former Tamerton Foliot) is a large factory of Rittal UK, and to the east on the A386 roundabout is Plessey Semiconductors (who have a design centre in Swindon). East of Plymouth at the Langage Science Park in Sparkwell, off the B3416/A38 Deep Lane Interchange, Geocel make industrial adhesives; further south Tecalemit (garage equipment) is on Langage Park. Stiga UK (garden equipment) is off the B3417 in Plympton, north of Langage. Westwood (lawn mowers) (owned by Ariens), make ride-on lawn mowers, and Atco and Mountfield is at Newnham Ind Est, off the B3417 in Plympton, both owned by GGP UK (Global Garden Products, based at Castelfranco Veneto in Italy).