Forging my traditional career
MARSHA O’MAHONY chats to blacksmith Steve Norris, who says he is carrying on hundreds of years of tradition in Didbrook
IN the sweltering heat we’ve experienced recently, spare a thought for traditional blacksmith Steve Norris, but you won’t see him complaining as he labours over the glowing charcoal in his forge.
Doing what he does and where he does is a dream come true for this award-winning smithy. Steve’s life these days is really like a scene from Lark Rise to Candleford or any number of TV dramas depicting rural living with the smithy at the heart of village life.
He is the village blacksmith in the picturesque village of Didbrook – it is beyond idyllic – situated on the equally lovely Stanway Estate, home of Lord Weymss, where ‘rush hour’ equates to two cars driving through.
While many forges have been converted to domestic dwellings, blacksmith Steve and his landlord are determined a smithy should remain at the heart of this village. In doing so, he follows many generations of blacksmiths who have banged and hammered hot metal into beautiful and practical objects in this wonky, timberframed building.
There has been a blacksmith here since the 17th century, and Steve is the latest to continue this traditional and ancient craft that has its roots in antiquity, stretching back many thousands of years. While having worked in the creative industries for a long time, Steve, now 47, was a relative latecomer to blacksmithing.
He was 30, when he came top of his class at university, and won a bursary from the Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths. Since then he hasn’t looked back and it is a business he intends to stay in.
“Before I arrived here in 2019, I was working for an old-school blacksmith, Mr Glean in Oxford.
He was from a long line of blacksmiths.
“University can teach you a lot, but there is nothing like having someone like him in your life. He proved to be an excellent mentor and teacher, having so much knowledge and skill around the craft of blacksmithing.”
When the forge at Didbrook became available, with a smallholding, house and orchard, Steve and his wife, Caroline, decided this could make their long-held dream become a reality.
“I was interviewed at the manor house by Lord Weymss. I was up against eight other smiths. He wanted to keep the tradition of smithing going at the forge and he saw something in me and took a chance on me. I brought some of my work to show him.
“He has a great passion for history and the tradition of handmade things. These days he occasionally pops his head in, and I have done some work up at the manor house for him. But this is my business and he doesn’t interfere.”
Steve’s work is a mix of award-winning historical and contemporary metalwork, made to the client’s specifications using traditional methods.
He is regularly consulted by TV companies and at historical re-enactment events, where he sets up his mobile forge, dressed up in period costume, often making campaign domestic ware. One of his most recent commissions was a gate based on a similar one in the abbey walls at Winchcombe. It is a piece of blacksmithing he is very proud of, a showcase for the skills of the traditional blacksmith.
“It is all handmade,” said Steve, “quite thick metal, and riveted. Solid rivets are one of the oldest and most reliable types of fasteners, having been found in archaeological findings dating back to the Bronze Age.
“It is the most intense piece of work I have ever done. There must be over 100 rivets in it and it took me over 230 hours to make.”
The finished work hangs proudly in a nearby village. Steve has his fingers crossed that the Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths will consider it and make him a ‘master blacksmith’.
“If I achieve that then I will get accepted into the guild and get to wear their livery,” he said. He certainly fits their brief when it comes to keeping alive the raw, tough, yet delicate craft alive.
“I want to understand how things were made 500 years ago with none of the equipment we have today,” said Steve.
“I use traditional skills as much as possible and that means no engineering, no welding and no lathe work.
“Just hammer, forge, heating, changing the structure of the metal. Basically, I’m using techniques and skills that have not changed in hundreds of years.
“After a busy day in the forge, my wife Caroline (we met around the campfire at a historical re-enactment event) like to sit in the garden in the sunshine, enjoying a gin and tonic,” he added.
“Recently we had a bi-plane fly overhead, and just over the fields, a steam train, from the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire Steam Railway, puffing past. It really can’t get much better.”
Unfortunately, Steve gets burnt every day; it’s something you have to get used to as a smithy, he says.
“When the sparks hit me I say, ‘the fire has bit me again.’ As a blacksmith you get very dirty, and at the end of day you are covered in black. But it is rewarding. I get satisfaction every day.”
For more information on Reddog Forge, or to find out more about re-enactment events, visit Steve’s website at ddogforge.co.uk or facebook. com/reddogforge