A DICKENS FORGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 155, 4 July 1939, Page 11

A DICKENS FORGE.

TO BE PRESERVED. WHERE JOE GARGERY WORKED. (Special.—By Air Mail.) LONDON. June 17. The original of Joe Ganrery's forjre in "Great Expectations" is in be preserved for the nation. It is at Chalk, a village near Gravesend. where Charles Dickens often stopped to chat with the blacksmith. Oscar Mi.'Hender. I Dickens sikmil a honeymoon in a cottajre a ,-hort distance from Chalk for«e. j which i-. years old and has been altered little since it was built. ! Mr. Arthur Mann, who took over the ! for-e from Mr. C. Mnllender. son of | Oscar. 14 years aw. said this week he | always had a yearning to work in Joe i (iarjrery's forpre. j 'In the summer." he said, "the forge !is visited by people from all parts of the world. Tourists like to sit awhile on Joe Garuery s anvil and take away horseshoes as souvenirs." Mr. Mann shoes many of the farm horses in the district, and horses from Milton Barracks, Gravesend. During his time Mr. Mann has put shoes on thousands of horses, but he has never been kicked. Once, however, when he was shoeing a farm, horse, the animal picked

him up by its teeth and dropped him outside the forge. I