Forging ahead

Few village forges exist outside racing country or the shires; however, the fires are still burning bright for blacksmithing and farriery

- SIR JOHNNY SCOTT

Of all the tradesmen who were required to make a village self-sufficient the carpenter, cobbler, butcher, publican and shop keeper – the most important was the blacksmith. From the earliest periods there would have been one smith to every handful of people; he was without doubt the most indispensable member of the community and usually the strongest, too.

Under a spreading chestnut-tree

The village smithy stands,

The smith, a mighty man is he

With large and sinewy hands.

And the muscles of his brawny arms

Are strong as iron bands…

Week in, week out, from morn till night

You can hear his bellows blow;

You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,

With measured beat and slow,

Like a sexton ringing the village bell

When the evening sun is low.

From Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Village Blacksmith, 1841 (the smith in the poem was Longfellow’s neighbour in Cambridge, Dexter Pratt).