Blacksmithing Still Needed By Farmers

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29057, 20 November 1959, Page 19

Blacksmithing Still Needed By Farmers

CARTER, of Kirwee, is a blacksmith. One ■ of the few men—and certainly one of the youngest —still plying the ancient craft, his smithy carries back memories to the days before the tractor roared across the paddocks and motor cars made the miles between country districts an insignificant matter of minutes.

The bricked forge casts up a gloom of smoke to the blackened rafters, the tongs hang on the edge of the quenching tub, the hammers and swages rest on their leather thongs and the hammer rings on the red hot iron, showering sparks on to the black dirt floor caught in a rift of sunlight from the grimy window, as the artisan works on.

Even today, there is the need for the blacksmith. Modern farm machinery in many cases demands the expert attention of the specialists; but some implements have changed little. Noel is an expert in setting ploughs and this is one facet of his work; making up and repairing harrows is another; and.

keeping abreast of modern times and remembering the second task of the smith in the old days of making farm drays, he builds truck decks. When he was visited in his smithy last Tuesday, Noel was beating out the flanges and tips of ploughshares—the first task of the smith when man began to till the ground in earnest. On the ground beside the anvil lay several bent pieces of wrought iron pierced with holes ready to form the frame of a set of harrows. The shaped tines lay in a pile nearby. The smithy where Noel works reeks of antiquity. It goes back well before the century to the days when the district was being developed.

On one wall is a calendar dated 1905 printed for the then owner of the forge, a Mr Drummond, a blacksmith who invented the well known Drummond harrows used by farmers to rid their land of twitch. Drummond harrows are still made today in the same forge.

Kirwee for many years supported two smithies and they became the gathering place for farmers to discuss local happenings as they waited for their implements and tools to be repaired. The same still applies today and while the anvil rings with the blow of the hammer a knot of men nearby will be talking over the weather, the crops or the races.

The Kirwee forge must be one of the fpw remaining in a country district of Canterbury and even it, too, has been touched by progress. As well as the traditional tools of the smith, the fat cylinders and hoses of the oxyacetylene welding plant sit on a barrow at the other end of the smithy and alongside them is an electric welder.