Although the village blacksmith has now almost ceased to exist in his traditional working form we can all visualise the man in his leather apron, bending over an anvil and hammering a length of hot iron taken from the constantly burning fire of the forge.
Along with wheelwrights and harness makers they are consigned to our impression of a rural life that was once commonplace but is now rare.
In the past, our Hampshire villages were both surrounded and supported by farms that constantly needed horses to help plough the land, plant the seed and reap the crops, as well as to transport and deliver the produce from the fields and the dairy.
Here, the proximity of a blacksmith was vital, to shoe the animals and to repair the utensils and basic machinery that the farm needed, as well as being on hand for a host of other jobs – in some country districts he even may have doubled as the local dentist in removing rotten teeth from the villagers as well as the animals.
But in the days when the horse was the only means of transport, there was a real need for blacksmiths not just in the villages but in the towns as well.
High Street shops needed to deliver goods as part of their daily rounds, both to local houses and into the near locality, and there would have been a constant flow of repairs, whether it be saucepans losing their handles, hearth pokers snapping in two, shovels needing re-attachment or garden tools being worn out.
It was not pleasant or easy work and hours were long, while the heat of the fire may have been welcome in the winter months but oppressively hot during summer.
So, the blacksmith’s trade dates back many hundreds, indeed thousands of years.
It is generally thought that Andover as a community in itself (rather than just an expanse of neighbouring farms and villas) began in the late 10th century when no doubt there would have been local blacksmiths at work; but it is really only when people began to make wills of their surviving property that actual names start to appear.
Diana Coldicott’s excellent book, ‘Elizabethan Andover’, identifies some early blacksmiths who were wealthy enough to write a will and supply an inventory of their goods.
John Pope worked a local forge and owned a collection of tools and a large supply of hand-made nails when he died in 1562, while Robert Walker’s forge was owned by Magdalen College.
At his death in 1584 he split his stock and tools between his brother-in-law Robert Yower and his nephew Anthony Bird. Another was Edward Kynes who combined his trade with that of cutler and farrier, carrying a large stock of knives and attending to the ailments of horses as well as his regular smith’s work.
Evidently, he did well and built himself a new house on the corner of Winchester and London streets while employing two apprentices.
This early evidence is fascinating but tantalisingly scant. As the title suggests, the author has of course confined herself to the reign of ‘Good Queen Bess’ which ended in 1603 but the evidence of wills and inventories, together with property deeds, would, with study, illuminate future periods as well
Coming into the 18th and 19th centuries, we are on firmer ground with directories, censuses and maps all adding to the resources available.
The earliest directory that includes a list of tradesmen is the Hampshire Directory of 1784 and surprisingly there is just one Andover blacksmith listed here – Edward Gibbons - but there are other traders who we might describe as ‘trespassing’ on the blacksmith’s work.
Samuel Fennel was a silversmith and brazier, William Dee was a farrier as well as running the George Inn, Solomon Prince was a cutler, and there were two whitesmiths – Philip Moore and Elizabeth Baldwin.
Distinctions in skills can be made between them but perhaps in a village, the blacksmith may have done all these things.
The Universal Directory of the 1790s period lists Thomas Brian as a blacksmith in Andover as well as two others both called John Smith, likely father and son.
The Andover blacksmiths, as everywhere else, plied their trade for the span of their lives and handed on their business.
Sometimes it was to their sons or nephews if they wanted it or perhaps an apprentice trained up to take over or maybe it went to an incomer.
Normally however, the smith’s shop remained constant over some hundreds of years in the same location.
Pigot’s directory of 1830 lists two in Andover – Charles Guyatt’s in King’s Head Street (London Street) and Mary Ann Tasker’s in Winchester Street.
Both of these forges are identifiable and survived into the 20th century and there is no reason to suppose that they did not exist long before 1830.
In Winchester Street, Mary Ann Tasker was the widow of Thomas Tasker, a blacksmith who died in 1830.
The forge lay near the entrance to South Street. Thomas was a brother to Robert Tasker of the famous Waterloo Ironworks, and although we know a lot about the brothers Robert and William, Thomas was another who came to Andover from Stanton St Bernard in Wiltshire to set up on his own account.
His widow ran the forge for another 30 years, employing two workmen. After her, it was taken over by a William Alfred Mayers, succeeded soon afterwards by George Clayton Mayers who was likely a brother, neither of whom were local.
George kept it until his death in 1922 but it is unclear whether there was much activity there afterwards.
William (Bill) Prosser, born in 1920, mentions in his book ‘Streets of Andover’ that he thought it closed around 1927. As a young boy, he recalled taking a childhood metal hoop there that was repaired by ‘Sam Mairs’.
Was the surname just wrongly heard and George known locally as Sam, or was it somebody else altogether?
The empty forge seems to have survived into the 1950s when that area was landscaped, probably because the ‘blind’ junction with South Street was considered too hazardous.
The other old forge was in London Street and existed well within living memory.
At the last it was run by Reg Pearman, who lived there. His brother Peter may also have been involved as the firm was styled S Pearman and Sons, their father being Sam.
It was located through an archway that lay two doors up the street from the Savoy cinema.
Charles Guyatt had survived until 1874 and was succeeded by Henry Tilling, descendants of whom still live in Andover today.
Henry’s son Fred ran a motor engineering business, so in two generations the family occupation advanced effortlessly from one mode of transport to its successor.
By 1911 Henry had retired to Old Winton Road and the smithy was taken over by Ernest Cooper.
Ten years later it was being run by Henry McIntosh.
He and his wife were English but their children were all born in Canada and had recently returned.
SEE ALSO: 50 employees at Be Wiser in Andover facing redundancy
Where they then went is unclear but by 1923, Sam Pearman was in charge of the forge and when he died in 1952, his sons carried on there.
By then, traditional smithy work had changed to general engineering, including arc-welding and acetylene work, a move with the times.
Pearman’s closed around 1980 and in 1986 both the forge and the house was to fall victim to the new road that linked Eastern Avenue to Winchester Street.
If you are interested in local history, why not join Andover History and Archaeology Society? Details can be found at www.andoverlocalhistoryarchaeology.uk
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