David Beard's Somewhat Strangely Varied Website
The
Then and now.....
Page One….The Old Forge
I lived at the
Old Forge until 1973. My mother Peggy lived there until 2005
Thomas Boyles
(my grandfather) became the tenant in 1922, buying the blacksmith's business
from a Mr Peedle for £50. Thomas undertook the usual work of a village
blacksmith, generally providing a service to the local farming community. Aside
from shoeing horses, he repaired farm implements such as ploughs, mowers and
binders. The yard must have been very congested. Iron railings were a frequent
repair job, and he made the ones on the right hand side of
A large walnut
tree, in the centre of the garden, was a dominant feature for many years. It
would produce a large crop of walnuts strangely sporadically. The last bumper
crop, after years of there only being a handful, was in the late sixties or
early seventies. The tree was finally felled, after becoming rather precarious,
in 1976.
Before 1962
water was available only from a cold water tap in the scullery. This meagre
utility did not arrive until around 1947. Before then a well in front of the
shed provided water, being eight or ten feet deep. It's still there, as far as
I know, covered over. Another well used to be in front of the (now) kitchen
window, and an iron pump used to stand at the corner of the house next to what
was once the post office window.
A number of
cottages in the village seem to have had
a standard issue of outbuildings, these being a substantial brick built
shed with boiler (or "copper'), an outside lavatory and a brick pigsty.
The Old Forge had all of these, although the pigsty has now gone.
The outside
lavatory, is for me, one of the most significant memories of living at the Old
Forge until 1962 when the inside flushing toilet replaced it. The lavatory,
straight out of "Lark Rise to Candleford" holds memories of sitting
there on a summer’s day with the door wide open, enjoying the view
through the hedgerow into the garden next door……..
The Old Forge in the early sixties. The
blacksmith’s shop is still there, attached to the cottage. It was not in use, and by
1963 had been demolished during modernisation of the cottage, That’s
Daphne Patchin’s Morris Minor van in the distance, parked outside the
village shop. That’s gone now….
Me
in my first car, in the early fifties. The blacksmith’s shop as it was,
is visible behind me.
And here a view in about 1973…paling
fence instead of the stone wall that is there now, and the Austin Healey Sprite
in which I made a local nuisance of myself…
The Old Forge in 2003. Peggy & Ron
Beard loved that garden…I think the rest of the village did too.