Artisans of Dartmoor - Book - Page 15
THE BLACKSMITH
Once at the heart of every British village, blacksmiths were revered
for their mastery over metal. Meet a man who taught himself the trade
to Greg Abel’s smithy in the town of
V isitors
Moretonhampstead rarely need directions.
They simply tune their ear to the metallic staccato
hammering echoing through the town’s narrow
granite alleyways, watch for smoke curling from a
tin roof, and follow the hot, thick scent of coal to his
Victorian forge.
Encircled by steam and in near-total darkness,
Greg is hard to make out as he coaxes an iron bar
into a spitting, white-hot coke fire. Everything
is covered in a grainy blanket of jet-black soot.
Everything. The floor, the work surfaces, the
windows, the ceiling rafters. Greg’s morning cup
of coffee already has a layer of grey dust on it, and
he himself, just a couple of hours into his day,
is caked in ash.
“Smithing isn’t for the fainthearted,” he says,
shuttling the now red-hot rod onto his anvil, where
he sets about striking it flat with almighty blows of
his hammer. “Spending your time bashing metal
with metal is terribly destructive on the body, but
I wouldn’t change it for a thing. Every time I bend
iron, I feel the same magic as when I first started.”
Now in his early seventies, Greg focuses on
personal projects and teaching rather than the
large-scale commissions of a few years ago. Many of
his students have fathers or grandfathers who were
smiths and come for a taste of what life was like for
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