The Berwick Hill Blacksmiths

As well as having a pub, in the 19th century Berwick Hill was large enough to have its own blacksmiths.

There is a Smithy marked on Ordnance Survey Maps of Berwick Hill right up until 1920. The maps appear to show it where the tree now stands at the corner of the field on the northern side of Berwick Hill Road.

The Smithy seems to have been housed in an agricultural cottage which was rented out by one of the local farms.

The first blacksmith listed here in a census was in 1841 when Thomas Thompson worked here. He died in 1864 and the blacksmith’s passed to Thomas Gillespy. He gave up being a blacksmith in 1870 and sold all his stock and tools. The list of the tools gives some indication of the nature of the work. “Comprises Bellows, Anvil, Vice, Stocks, Taps, Dies, Hammers, Swages, Fullers, Drills, Turning Tools, Shoeing Boxes, and the rest of the Minor Tools”.

Gillespy was replaced by George Scott but although the building continued to be shown as a Smithy on maps, there is no further record of a blacksmith working in the village. The building still appears on an aerial photograph dating from 1947 but was cleared by the subsequent Ordnance Survey Map of 1961.