Lyme Regis, The Smithy 1909

Photo ref: 61633A

More about this scene

In the early 1900s, no village was without its blacksmith's shop. The smith's main task was the shoeing of horses, but he turned his hand to a great variety of jobs that involved the working of metal. The painter J M Whistler visited the fashionable seaside town of Lyme Regis in 1895. As he climbed the steep main street he must have heard Samuel Govier's hammer crashing against steel in his yard, and seen the glowing fire and the shower of incandescent sparks through the dim doorway. Captivated, he set to and painted 'The Master Smith of Lyme Regis', a fine portrait which now hangs in the Boston Museum in the USA. A painting by a famous artist is no guarantee of immortality, though. In Lyme today nothing of Govier remains, and where his smithy once stood, and where the town children gathered to watch the steam hissing from the white-hot shoes, Woolworth's now stands. The Frith photograph shows Govier at work shoeing in 1909. His assistant holds a rasp which is used for paring down and cleaning the horse's hoof. Against the wall on the right is the grindstone for sharpening tools.

An extract from British Life a Century Ago.