A Slip of the Anvil on Downton Abbey: Did you catch the reference?

Here's some trivia for a February Sunday afternoon: how closely are you paying attention when you watch television?

Notice the horse being shod
in the background as the
wedding proceeds. 

If you're like me, you'll be glued to the television tonight for the final episode of the second year of the PBS/BBC mini-series Downton Abbey. 

And if you're also anything like me, you knew that, sooner or later, something related to hoofcare would show up in the second series. 

A horse lost a shoe in the first series, with no farrier to be found. Lady Mary was very annoyed that she had to walk the horse home.  I thought that surely the farrier would materialize and later turn out to be the rightful heir to the estate. 

 This year, I've been waiting patiently for writer Julian Fellowes to let another hoof reference fly. And he did. 

It happened last week: Second series, episode six, the one where the war is over, but the Spanish Flu has hit instead.

But did you catch the reference? 

It was a fleeting one. Lady Sybil has eloped with her Irish anarchist chauffeur lover; they've driven off into the night when Lady Mary discovers they're missing. 

Which way did they go? You might wonder. 

But Lady Mary knew instantly where they had gone. "Oh, we must hurry! They'll be halfway to Gretna Green by now!" she gushes as she and Lady Edith rush out the door. 

That's it. The alarm is sounded: "Gretna Green" means only one thing: Lady Sybil has run away to stand in front of an anvil in Scotland. And since Downton Abbey is supposed to be in Yorkshire, they didn't have that far to go.

The dowager countess will definitely not approve.

Kilts are probably optional and you probably have to pay the piper but weddings are still big business in Gretna Green, which rivals Las Vegas as a town with a wedding-as-industry mindset.

Apparently it was the way that elopements happened for centuries in England. By crossing the border from England to Scotland, couples were eligible to be wed--no questions asked. And the first place you came to when you crossed over from Cumbria was a smithy in the hamlet of Gretna Green.

And the smith had the legal power to perform marriages.

You might wonder how I happen to know about an obscure Scottish village. Well, I've even been there. Twice. Not to get married, but to be a tourist. Gretna Green is in Dumfriesshire, just down the road from Closeburn, the ancestral home of Edward Martin, FWCF, MBE,  the great Scottish farrier and blacksmith. 

 You can bet that Gretna Green was on the tourist route for his incredible hospitality when Americans came his way. 

The history was interesting and it was sort of amusing to be tourists at the weddings of total strangers, but a gift shop full of anvil-theme items was simply a candy store for farrier visitors to take home as mementos of this unique village. It must be the anvil souvenir capital of the world.

Now that it's been mentioned on the world's favorite television drama, the wedding business must be booming in Gretna Green. But then again, it always has been.

Photos: Anvil emblem by Chris in Plymouth, smiddy interior by Andrys Stienstra, happy couple by Matt Thorpe. 

© Fran Jurga and Hoofcare Publishing; Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog is a between-issues news service for subscribers to Hoofcare and Lameness Journal. Please, no use without permission. You only need to ask. This blog may be read online at the blog page, checked via RSS feed, or received via a digest-type email (requires signup in box at top right of blog page). To subscribe to Hoofcare and Lameness (the journal), please visit the main site, www.hoofcare.com, where many educational products and media related to equine lameness and hoof science can be found. Questions or problems with this blog? Send email to blog@hoofcare.com.  

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The Place to be Tonight

by Fran Jurga | 31 December 2009 | Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog

Here's a peek inside the Smiddy in Dundonnell, Scotland, which is almost as far north as you can go. It's past Inverness, and looks west toward the Outer Hebrides. It's a smiddy no more, but a mountaineering hut where up to ten hikers can rest for the night. But the forge fire blazes and the tools are still there and here's a fellow to serenade us on the accordion.

The red dot on the map at left locates Dundonnell on a map of Scotland. The islands to the left are the Outer Hebrides.

Auld Lang Syne is, after all, a Scottish tune penned by the great poet Robert Burns. But you knew that.

Here's the Dundonnell smiddy from the outside.

I can't think of anyone I'd rather spend an evening by the fire with than the readers of this blog. Of course I'm not really in Scotland, except maybe in a flight of imagination.

Thanks to Dundee, Scotland photographer Robbie Graham for the loan of this photo. Robbie asked for a "wee credit", but I'd give him a lot of credit. His photographs are extraordinary; take a "wee" tour of Scotland with Robbie with this set of images of the country he obviously knows and loves so well.

Happy new year from the Hoof Blog as I turn off the Big Mac for the year! May Auld Lang Syne's cup of kindness find you all often in 2010.

Ireland's Fine Horses Once Passed Through This Arch

County Carlow in Ireland is home to this skeleton of a once proud forge. Double-click on the image for a larger view. Photo kindly loaned by Paddy Martin.

Throughout the lifetime of this blog, I have periodically shared evidence of a few special remaining buildings that are scattered around the globe. These buildings are usually in the British Isles. They are special in that they employ the simplest and most elegant form in nature, the arch, to emulate a horseshoe as the supporting doorway of a smithy or shoeing forge.

True to form, as soon as you publish one, another one pops up. Or, in today's case, two pop up.

We have Paddy Martin from Ireland to thank for these, and I do thank him heartily.

The top photo is my favorite. The arch of the old forge may soon be all that is left. It was definitely the strongest form. Notice there is also an arch in the fence gate. And even the ivy on the cottage is attempting to imitate the form of an arch. This must be a magical place.

I can't help but notice that the scale of this arch is more powerful than many of the horseshoe doorways seen in other smithies from days gone by. You could drive a truck through there, or a loaded wagon. Surely either this farrier was a proud man, or a prosperous one, or both, and that must have meant that the horses in the area enjoyed visiting a fine smithy, back in the day.

But why hasn't it been preserved? There's certainly something beautiful in the neglectful state, but how long before it crumbles?

Paddy writes, "I'm now 60 years old and the first time that I saw this old forge was when I was walking or 'driving' cattle from a farm near Castledermot to another farm near Rathvilly in County Carlow...a distance of about seven miles. I was helping my father and I must have been about 10 at the time. I seem to remember the name Cummins or Cummings being associated with this old forge. At about 18 I moved away from the area and I have only become reacquainted since my daughter moved into a house two minutes away a couple of years ago.

"The forge is located at Corballis Cross Roads which is on the 'back road' from Castledermot to Baltinglass through Crop Hill in South Kildare. The building itself seems not to be past restoration...must have a closer look when I'm there again."

Note to Paddy: Find out if it is for sale....

And this slightly different rendition on the arched doorway is in County Kildare. Photo kindly loaned by Paddy Martin.

Paddy's second forge photo is one that I believe I have seen pictured before; he says it is on the road from Kildare Town to Rathangan in County Kildare. It is very similar to others found in Ireland but it doesn't have the single window above the keystone--or maybe it did and it has been bricked over.

I need to make some sort of a Google Map with all these great old forges marked on it so someone (maybe even me, someday) could go on tour and visit them all. We could have some sort of a smithy architecture road rally up and down the British Isles. In order to win you'd have to have a picture of yourself in front of each forge. That's the sort of farrier competition I might be able to win.