A Great Wooden Smithy Doorway Opens into the 17th Century Claverdon Forge in Warwickshire, England

Claverdon Forge is yet another British smithy with a horseshoe shaped door, although this one is the most rustic and broad-toed one I've seen. It's wooden rather than stonework, but it's still there. This type of construction is called "half timber". And it looks cozy in there!

Favorite Photo: The Architecture of an Age, the Culture of a Craft

Posted by Fran Jurga | November 16, 2008 | www.hoofcare.blogspot.com

Fabulous Flickr image originally uploaded by ALGO and kindly loaned by him

As the sun sets in Buckinghamshire, England, it warms and illuminates centuries of different families of bricks that are working together to hold up a lovely old smithy in the village of Wingrave. How those old timbers are defying gravity is a mystery to me but I am so glad they are resisting what must be a tremendous urge to let down the weight.

Everyone who reads this blog knows that I am a sucker for arch-door smithies of the type that proliferated the Irish and British countrysides around the turn of the century. If you squint at this shop, you can see an arch not for the door, but for the entire structure. The arch, of course, is the strongest form in nature and in engineering, and the strongest men in the village found ways to incorporate it into their simple workshops. The fact that the arch is mirrored in the horseshoe was a bonus that these self-taught architects just could not resist exploiting!

How many people rush by this old building each day without a thought to what its survival means? People will stop and photograph a water wheel or a dovecote or an old weathervane, but old blacksmith shops rarely are worthy of a snap, perhaps because they are so humble and, until you look more closely, non-descript.

My guess is that until the wintery sun hit at just this angle, the photographer hadn't paid much attention, either. The sun showed him a warm patchwork quilt, built out of bricks.

Thanks to Algo (Alex), for the loan of this beautiful photo. Alex is an extraordinary landscape photographer; his Flickr files are worth a long glance, just like this forge.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing. No use without permission.

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Favorite Photo: A Fine Smithy

I have an idea to publish my collection of photos of blacksmith shops, smithies, smiddies and forges but I keep finding photos of ones that I haven't seen yet, so I guess I have to keep traveling for another decade or so. I'd like to have a war room type of map with the location of all the old shoeing shops marked on it. What a lofty goal that is: an architectural treasure hunt!

Of equal interest to the ones that survived are the ones that didn't. What has replaced the old blacksmith shops? A busy shop once stood in the middle of Times Square in Manhattan!

But as fast as shoeing shops crumble and decay from abandonment or are rehabbed into restaurants and condominiums, clever people are building new ones. Or dressing up the old ones.

So we come to this image from the bulging "favorite photos" file. This fine shop is in Gonalston, Nottinghamshire, in Great Britain. As fine as the smithy may be, the phone booth just puts the frosting on the cake.

There's a verse over the door that reads:
"Gentlemen, as you pass by,
pray on this shoe cast your eye.
If it's too strait we'll make it wider.
Twill ease the horse and please the rider.
If lame by shoeing (as they sometimes are),
you can have them eased with the greatest of care."

The photo above is generously loaned by Iain Paterson who adds that he dedicated it to his wife, Jodi, "who is descended from a line of blacksmiths." She must feel right at home.

This snowy smithy in Poland has always been on my list of favorites.

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing for Iain Paterson. No use without permission.

Favorite Photo: They Don't Build Them Like This One Anymore...

Reproduced courtesy of The Francis Frith Collection.

Here's the fabulous Gould and Sons Forge in Merrow, England in 1913, just before the outbreak of World War I. I'm not sure what's more impressive, the horseshoe-shaped doorway to the forge or the topiary cottage next door! Does it have an arch as well?


Reproduced courtesy of The Francis Frith Collection.

Fast forward 15 years: Here you see the same forge in 1927. Where did the horses go? The doorway is still there but they've added gas pumps--and look at that car! Note that the cottage seems even more buried under foliage. And the fellows aren't wearing aprons.

Like so many others, I have a "thing" for these old forges with arched "horseshoe" portals and would love to know which ones are still standing. I know the one near Waterford, Ireland (now a tearoom) is still there--are there others? What became of this one in Merrow, England?

Please email fran@hoofcare.com if you have any information about old forges or farrier-related architecture. Thank you!