
Yesterday afternoon news reached me that our village blacksmith(click the link to read about over a hundred years of his family business in our village) was selling up, everything in his forge and workshops was up for auction - NOW!

He is an elderly man with no one to take over the business, so I can fully understand his reasons, but I also felt a little sad at the loss of yet another traditional trade from our tiny village.

Ninety-six year old John, the beekeeper, recently visited us to borrow a book which I had previously lent to him...an 1898 account book for a village blacksmith's business. He wanted to show it to his friend, the blacksmith.

How could I refuse? Besides, who better to peruse the old entries than these two chaps, both of whom are nearly as old as the book and to whom the old terms and old farming equipment would have been so familiar.

They had a wonderful time poring over the book together and were able to decipher some of the stranger terms and to explain how things were done all that time ago.

The old and rusty equipment, covered in so many layers of dirt and dust was wonderful to behold.
I love the old and worn metal work, the grain of the wood which has silvered and worn.This equipment was used for making wheels.

Keith, our local village pub landlord, found this old knife, it is bone handled and has seen a lot of use.Our wonderful Railway Tavern often gets a mention in posts, here is one.
We havelost our Post Office, village shop, butcher's shop,the village school
and now the village blacksmith.
Luckily,
we still have the pub and the village hall.
As we left, prospective purchasers were pouring in.I didn't want to stay and watch.x
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