Blacksmiths and Forges

Bill Curtis

Around 1910 there were at least five forges in the town.  Verrall and Son were the largest, at today’s Verralls Corner, but Nicholas and Sons ran a busy forge in today’s Burgess’ yard opposite New Street. There was a forge behind the Pheasantry, a forge next to Darenth Nursery at the bottom of Vicarage Hill and Edward Evenden ran one at his ‘West Kent’ works at the bottom of Hosey Hill. The term ‘blacksmith’ is used to describe someone working with dull and dark ferrous metals such as iron or steel. A ‘whitesmith’ was someone who worked with bright metals such a tin and brass.  The blacksmiths served the wheelwrights and coachbuilders around the town, fabricated and maintained agricultural implements and machinery for the surrounding farms and most of them shod horses as well.

Chris Pickett re-collected childhood memories “…there were a number of interesting things at the west end of town, such as the two Blacksmiths Forges, Mr. Nicholas’s opposite the Royal Standard Pub near New Street, and Mr. Verrall at Verralls Corner. I remember how fascinated I was to watch them shoeing horses, and working red hot metal on their anvils. While on the subject of Blacksmiths, I must mention the one at the works at the bottom of Hosey Hill, worked by Mr. Chapman for Mr. Evenden. He would mend our broken iron hoops (only on Saturday mornings) for a penny and put new runners on our sledges in the winter!   Going back to the west end of town was the coach-builders, next to the Warde Arms, run by two brothers by the name of Woods, very clever men they were, making wooden wheels for big carts and wagons that would be fitted with iron ‘tyres’ by the local blacksmiths, and repairing all kinds of vehicles, mostly horse-drawn…”

George Wells also had fond memories of the blacksmith’s forges of Verrall by Mill Lane and the Nicholas’ Brothers in their yard in the High Street. “…we used to go into Mr. Nicholas’ yard and have a look at what they were doing – he didn’t mind, he used to talk to us, explaining what he was doing and it was nice. I remember Mr. Verrall down the bottom used to have the big old horses in the yard and it was busy there… Verrall carried on into the 1950s, but Nicholas packed it up earlier and Mr. Burgess took the yard over…”

Hubert Verrall did indeed run the forge until 1950 when he retired and sold the business to James Williams.

 
With increasing numbers of cars, vans and lorries appearing in the late 20s and early 30s, and a steady decline in horse-drawn traffic, Verrall had sensibly diversified and by 1936 was advertising his trade and business as ‘Hubert H. Verrall RSS ‘Ye Olde Smithy’ machinist, shoeing and general smith’s work, implement agent, stove & range work, locksmith, tyring, fencing etc.’ With a respectful nod towards tradition, however, he declared himself a member of the ‘Kent Rural Industries Co-operative Society Ltd’.
 
That Verrall and Nicholas could survive with their businesses so close together may seem somewhat of a surprise, but Phil Johnson from Westerham Garage remembers Verralls as more involved with the re-tyring of cart wheels and producing, selling and mending agricultural implements while Nicholas was more of a metal fabricator. “... Verrall was a blacksmith more into coaches, with a wheel-stand outside, I always remember that. Alf Nicholas was essentially in the metal as a jobbing engineer and a very good one. He was so clever, we used to take the springs down there for re-tempering and setting - we had a small forge in the garage, but it wasn’t right for that - and he used to do them with a hazel stick, when it started to smoulder he would plunge them - it was as old fashioned as that, yet he was a very skilled engineer who also used to look after the brewery steam engines. I can tell you a story about Alf - he laughs - he was a man who could spit with great precision; I went down there once and he was soldering up the joints on a nicely made grill, and as he finished each joint he would spit and hit it every time to cool it down... I remember his son Frank was immensely strong, I once watched him pick up an anvil and put it on the back of a truck, like it weighed nothing at all, and it was quite a sizable anvil too...”
 
Alf and Fanny Nicholas outside their house near the Warde Arms.
 
An invoice for the closing quarter of 1934 addressed to Edward Boyes at Moorhouse farm for services and supply of parts.

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