There were blacksmith workshops in two places in the village.

Petrol was available in the late1920s at the workshop opposite the modern post office as can be seen above.

 The blacksmith Tom Smith at work shoeing a working

horse for Harry Weston in the above smithy.

Frank Atkins, left and Fred Lambert, right watching.

 

Smiths – blacksmiths at Yardley Gobion

By the beginning of the twentieth century Henry Smith lived in the cottage opposite the blacksmith’s workshop in the centre of the village.

I had previously found a William Smith master blacksmith in the same cottage in the village mid nineteen century so I assumed they were related. On investigation I found Henry Smith born in Thornborough just over the border in Buckinghamshire, the son of Tom Smith the blacksmith then at Potterspury. His grandfather had been an agricultural labourer who had lived in Leckhampstead. The blacksmithing beginning with his father Tom who had worked as a blacksmith at Leckhampstead and Beachampton before coming to Potterspury.

In the 1891 Census Henry was a single man, blacksmith and an employer living in the cottage opposite the blacksmiths shop. He married Lavinia Johnson in 1897 and by the 1901 Census he had three children and by 1911 he had eight children and was called a general smith and farrier. He was the grandfather of Pat Smith who lived in Yardley Gobion until his death in 2012.  Later Henry’s son Tom took over as blacksmith.  To see more of interest click here Water Works

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The William Smith, blacksmith employing one man in Yardley Gobion in 1861 was born in Hackleton just north of Salcey Forest not so many miles away. Of his six children the first child to be born in Yardley Gobion in 1855 was William Sydenham. The previous child born three years before was born in Hackleton so he would have moved here between 1852 to 1855.. Two of his sons became blacksmiths living in Yardley, one, John was grandfather of Stan Church, father of Lottie Church nee Smith, he worked as a journeyman blacksmith working at one time at Wakefield. The other son was William who built a blacksmith’s shop by the Coffee Pot of which he was also the publican, his sister Elizabeth lived in the little cottage joined to the back of the chapel.

 

 

 

 

 

The blacksmith’s workshop built next to the Coffee Pot public house while William Sydenham Smith was the publican.  It was demolished some time in the early twentieth century.