From GAZETTE 16

WHOLESALE HAMMERING
A Profile Of Giles Blakeley

by Frederick Lloyd
   Submitted by Chris Hough ?

Giles Blakeley was really a blacksmith from the word go. Never content to play with cars or footballs, he would be crashing through the Kentish bracken, double handed sword in grip, clad in helmet and shield. He was trained under a five year apprenticeship in Westerham, Surrey, with a farrier. The farrier liked to stick  to farriery and as a result Giles quickly took on most of the blacksmithing work which came in. At the same time, he took a City and Guilds course in Blacksmithing at Hereford.

    After his apprenticeship he travelled to Tuscany, Italy, where he worked as a  farrier for three months.  Fellow blacksmith and family friend Catherine Lloyd later invited Giles to Norway  where  they spent six weeks together  working on a very large fire basket and  other large commissions. "I was good at the basics and she was very good at finishes and perfecting everything. It worked out really well. It was a good time".  

     "From the money earned on that job I actually bought most of the basic tools for my forge."  He had set up a forge in a converted out-house on the family property in Crowborough; Towsers Lodge Forge. Giles, his wife and Cador, their Irish Wolf Hound live next door, in a caravan. Now, two babies and one on the way later, they live in a house  nearby.   His wife is a trained  photographer and organises most of his PR and secretarial work. The forge is 3Oft. by l3ft. described by Giles as, "A rustic country forge full of creative knick-knacks, with a double bick anvil, drills, grinders and all the necessary equipment.  I'm trained in all the welding skills. I'd like a power hammer and bending machine, then I'd have  everything I want. I think." He told me that he made all his own tongs, "As any good smith should," and talked at length of his love for French hammers with a square block body, square forging face, and broadside pane.

    In January '87, when work first started coming in, it was mostly restoration jobs for antique dealers. He estimates this is still fifty percent of his income.  He enjoys this work very much. "You need a good eye for colour and a feel for textures required to match. I use old metal where I can, to enhance the finish and I have a special rusting technique which I've perfected." He wouldn't reveal  it to  me, naturally. "Trade top secret." he bearns mischievously. Before us on the bench sits a well rusted Huntsman and Hounds weather-vane and some 17th century table brackets which need copying exactly.  In his photo album of work some 'antique' candle holders catch my eye, perfectly 'restored' to their appropriate age.  They're reminiscent of Greek iconoclastic decorations. "People come in and want this or that to be repaired. It goes mostly by word of mouth. I repair things, copy originals and replace missing parts and there's the rosehead nails, I suppose you better mention them, I make them by the hundred for antique dealers, they can't get enough of them."

    If restoration is his favourite money earner, his favourite hobby is sword and knives. "I've always enjoyed making them. I made my first proper double handed sword six years ago. I sold a beautiful sword and helmet for a silly price through a London showroom."  He points the picture out. The helmet has large brass wings, the nose piece is an elegantly sculptured dragon. The double handed sword was forged in mild steel and quenched in oil for a rainbow effect. Then there are pages of knives; thatching knives, hunting knives, throwing knives, all with wooden handles, riveted to the tang. "I make the sheaths and scabbards too. I've always had a special   interest   in   Samurai craftsmanship. They're just the best."

Knives apart, a lot of creative blacksmithing is hammered out in Towsers Lodge Forge. "I like to work closely with the customers and their designs." The Sunday Express included him in an article on weathervanes which inundated him with weathervane commissions. He cuts and forges them by hand, with copper, tin or brass lettering and Hammerite finish. "I've tried and tested the finish on my car.  His car is a uniquely adapted Citroen. A moving advert on wheels. "

    I've had some interesting large commissions from a landscape and interior designer, Leonard Lassalle. I built a large table-base, three metres by one metre, eighty wide and ninety centimetres high. Forged from thirty mil. square bar. It had an oak pedestal base and an enormous Italian inlaid marble top. It really looked great. On interiors I tend to clear back the scale to reveal the patination and then build up layers of black polish. I made a couple of garden gates for the same client. A flower gate and a clover gate, one metre, eighty by ninety centimetres and eighty by ninety centimetres respectively. The flower gate was a business; each flower had to be cut by hand, all one hundred and eighty of them! I riveted them in place, the rivet then formed the heart of each flower. The clover gate was more straightforward. I used a halving joint on the uprights and crossrails." It looked lovely. If I had a garden, I'd love a garden gate like that. Giles grinned through his bushy orange stubble, "One day," he says, "One day."

    "So" I ask, "What else have we got to cover?" "Well" answers Giles, "There's all the other everyday stuff which a blacksmith knows." "Well, what made you do all this and get ingrained grubby hands then?" I prompt for a personal touch. He laughs. "I don't know, I've always wanted to".  In the blood in other words I mumble. "A grandfather made swords for the army. Then he moved on to saw making. He died when he was ninetysix, in Sheffield." "Oh I see." I think to myself, "So granddad's been reborn." Well even if he hasn't I'll bet he's well pleased with his grandson's rustic grinding adventures. Giles gets into his converted, hammerited Citroen. Time to take Cador, the Irish Wolf Hound to the vets. At ten he's an old man with a dicky heart. Off they go, and I'm left beside the forge, staring at a field of free range chickens. And so another morning passes at another country forge.

In the 1997 Phone book:-

BLAKELEY, Giles,  Creative Blacksmith
CROWBOROUGH
Sussex