Blacksmiths

There are up to five locations which might have been where blacksmiths were once located during the 1700s and 1800s, although probably only a maximum of two were active at any one time, usually one at each end of the village. No doubt they were closely associated with the two coaching inns.

The two locations where there were certainly blacksmith’s shops are:

• A building which is no longer standing, at the corner of High Street and French Gardens Lane. This was the main smithy in the first half of the 1800s, before Forge Cottage. It ceased to be a blacksmith's around 1890.
• Forge Cottage, corner of High Street and Sutton Lane; this only became a smithy in around 1851, and continued until around 1920.

In addition:

• The Old Corner Shop, corner of High Street and Seagry Road, was probably a blacksmith’s in the early 1800s, until about 1840.
• There may have been a blacksmith’s on Park Lane at one time.

In fact, there are seven people who were identified as blacksmiths in the 1841 Census:

• John Miles
• James Miles
• Abraham Thomas
• Abraham Marsh
• James Howell
• John Howell
• Thomas Webb

The main blacksmith's near The Wellesley Arms was located where 12-14 High Street is today; this is an Estate Cottage built on the site of two houses and workshops. One was a Carpenter's, while the property on the corner of High Street and French Gardens Lane was a blacksmith's until the new houses were built in 1897.

Forge Cottage, at the opposite end of the village on the corner of High Street and Sutton Lane, was the blacksmith's from about 1850 to the early 1900s. Thomas Bray was in business there by 1851, and his sons were working there through to about 1910. The last blacksmith in the village, Henry Martin, was still working in 1921 when Forge Cottage was sold in the Draycot Estate Auction; however, the 1921 Ordnance Survey map no longer shows it as a 'smithy', as it did in 1895.