As a child I remember watching a blacksmith on TV. He was forging a rams head from a piece of uninspiring, lifeless iron. I understood how a stonemason, for example, could make a beautiful sculpture by gradually carving away at a large ‘lump’ of stone, but the emerging rams head I was avidly watching on TV wasn’t being carved from a lump of metal with chisels and a hammer, it had started life as an ugly straight bar, much the same as you would find on the railings surrounding the local park. It was being heated in a coke fire until yellow and sometimes white, then hammered, bent, twisted and all with such dexterity and skill that I thought he must be a magician. I make rams heads in my forge today (click here to see a photo of a forged ram’s head) and much more besides, and I can assure you there is some magic involved, but mainly skill and dexterity.

Blacksmiths have played a fundamental role within cities and rural communities over the centuries, crafting essential items for industry, agriculture and the home. It is also believed that the blacksmith’s forge was an important central meeting place within a community where people would come to discuss the issues of the day. 

The level of dependency on the local blacksmith has dwindled over the years as many of the items ordinarily produced by blacksmiths are now being mass produced in factories at a much lower cost. Although this enables everyday items to be more accessible to a wider public, the quality, strength and beauty of hand-forged ironwork is lost.

The skills needed to forge wrought iron (or steel as we commonly use today) have remained unchanged (albeit with a little assistance from modern machinery and tools), and there is still the need for a blacksmith in the twenty first century. There is an increasing demand for individual ironwork, and the desire to have that unique, something special around the home, garden or office, whether for function or beauty. It also goes without saying that there are many things we need in our everyday environment where “one size fits all” doesn’t always work!