The blacksmiths of Campfield Smiddy
April 2005
by John Duff
Molly Ogston was the daughter of James Coutts Forbes, the last blacksmith at Milton of Campfield, Torphins, and she must be remembered by the many Leopard readers who have listened to her recite, enjoyed her reminiscences of old-time Glassel, or danced to the band in which she was pianist. Local folk will also remember her husband Bill, a decent, obliging man, a motor mechanic who was as monosyllabic as his wife was newsy, and who invariably looked as if he had just emerged from his daily bath in bursen oil and put on his freshly greased and polished tie to greet the farmers who made up the bulk of his customers.
Molly’s grandfather and her father in turn had been the blacksmiths at Campfield Smiddy, but by the time her father retired, soon after World War 2, agricultural engineers were rapidly replacing traditional blacksmiths, and the smiddy closed, remaining exactly as it had been when old Jimmy Forbes walked out for the last time.
Bill Ogston had been a tiffy, or fitter, in the REME during the war, and after their marriage he and Molly set up home in the blacksmith’s house at Campfield, where Molly kept house for her father till he died in 1962, and Bill ran his garage business in a wooden shed beside the house. Although he did his best to be supportive of his wife, Bill really had little inclination towards Molly’s many interests, and was happier in his spare time doing a bit of rough shooting, accompanied by his black labrador, which lived under a bench in the workshop.
Molly, in addition to her hectic social life and antiquarian interests, was a true bibliophile of no mean calibre. She acquired books, not necessarily to read, but just because they were books, and she couldn’t resist them. She went to all the roups in the area, and invariably came home with more books. In time, her books overflowed all the shelf space in the house, and accumulated in piles on the sitting room floor, till they were stacked about five feet deep, with narrow tracks allowing cautious passage between the many piles.
At this stage Bill was co-opted to help, and built shelves which in no way lessened the constriction in the room, but did allow some sight of the titles. In no way daunted, Molly continued to buy books, till Bill in desperation bought a big old Co-operative grocery van and parked it outside the smiddy to serve as an overflow book repository. Molly Ogston’s books became something of a local legend.
In 1951, following a youthful mishanter with a motor bike, Bill had saved my bacon by patching up my bike, well away from the baleful eye of Jimmy Ellis, the Echt bobby, who undoubtedly would have wanted to know much more about the accident than was good for me.
As a result of this, I always had a soft spot for Bill, and 25 years later, when I had become an unworthy lug o’ the law myself, stationed at Banchory, I used sometimes to stop at Campfield, where Molly, delighted to get someone to news to, would put on the kettle.
It has to be said that the Ogstons were not showy folk, and neither were they in the forefront of change. In fact, had old Jimmy walked back into his house, he would not have known much difference, apart from the electric light bulb hanging from the middle of the ceiling. There was a water tap in the scullery, and there may have been a hot-water system, but it was not in evidence. Certainly they had no bathroom. One benefit of the rather dim lighting was that any small traces of engine oil on Molly’s cups was not readily noticeable, and her formidable knowledge of local antiquarian affairs was a real delight, distracting attention admirably from any little deficiencies in her housekeeping routine.
Sadly, in the fullness of time, Molly passed away before her husband, leaving him to make the best shape he could at fending for himself. Bill had never had to cook, and found himself quite unable to acquire the minimal skills necessary, trying to survive on a diet of bread and jam, washed down by cups of tea. He also withdrew into himself and became quite paranoid about money, imagining that his relatives were trying to cheat him. Molly’s books were sold to a dealer as a job lot. Visits which had been a pleasure when Molly was alive became a duty, undertaken less and less frequently.
On one occasion in the early Eighties, however, Bill seemed to have temporarily regained his old manner, and volunteered to show me round the smiddy. It was a complete time-warp, unchanged since his father-in-law had worked there. The new horseshoes were there, hung on a rail, waiting to be fitted to the next ghostly horse which arrived; the hearth, bellows, anvil and hammers were ready for use, and all the tools of the smith’s trade were arrayed on racks and on the work bench, just as they had been left. The only things missing were the glowing coals in the hearth; the sweating, leather-aproned blacksmith, sleeves rolled up, and the unforgettable, blended smiddy smell of coal reek, quenched iron and singed hair and hoof.
Upstairs in the loft, where long ago the apprentice had slept, there were piles of old ledgers. Picking one up, I saw that it dated back to World War 1. “Tak’ them”, said Bill, “they’re nae eese ti’ me”. Unable to believe my good fortune, but not wanting to appear greedy, I selected a few of what appeared to be the oldest of the ledgers, and departed before he could change his mind.
Many times since then, I have regretted not taking full advantage of Bill’s offer, because he died shortly afterwards, the property was inherited by a relative abroad, and the house remained boarded up for many years. The smiddy itself just sat there slowly mouldering; the door ajar. I never heard what became of the contents or the priceless records it contained of the lives of successive country blacksmiths. It is now being converted to a dwelling house.
After we moved back to Braemar, the Campfield books remained in a packing case for many years, the study of them always postponed in favour of getting on with the restoration of the derelict meal mill which we had bought as a retirement home. Recently, however, I decided to try to find out a little more about the smiths of Campfield, and to have a closer look at the ledgers and day books, which, with gaps, spanned a period from 1879 to 1909.
The oldest ledger Bill Ogston had given me covered a period from May 1879 to March 1882. The inside of the back cover is given over to noting the wages paid to James Forbes, from May 1880 to November 1881. He was paid monthly, at the rate of £1:2/- (£1.10p) per week, till 9 April 1881, when his pay suddenly dropped to £1, and continued at that rate. There is no indication of ownership on the ledger, but it clearly must have been George Trail’s, predecessor to Molly’s grandfather. I wonder if it may have been left to the young smith taking over, as a guide to pricing.
The 1871 Census shows that the Mill of Campfield blacksmith was George Trail, aged 49, born in Logie Buchan, and he had as his assistant James Duncan, aged 26, born in Banchory Ternan. By 1881, the blacksmith was still George Trail, a master blacksmith employing one man. James Forbes, aged 38, with a wife and step-daughter of 15, still a scholar (why had she not left school at 14?), also a blacksmith and obviously the employee, was also resident at Mill of Campfield. By this time the former assistant, James Duncan, still blacksmithing, had moved to Aberdeen, where he was working for a Charles Duncan, nine years older than he and born in the parish of Kincardine O’Neil, so it seems likely that he was a relative.
For the two Terms from May 1879 to May 1880, George Trail had 46 customers running accounts, which were tendered six-monthly in May and November. Unsurprisingly, most of his customers were farmers, and the total acreage of the 37 farms, as quoted in the Census of 1881, was 3167.5, giving an average of 85.6 acres.
The biggest farmer was Andrew Wilson in Easter Beltie, who farmed 360 acres, 230 of them being arable, and he employed six men and two girls. His bill at the May term was only £1.15/- (£1.75), and he had no bill in November, so he must have traded with more than one smith. The best customer that year was William Davidson, Pittencerie (sic), who had 120 acres arable, and employed four men and two girls. His bill for the year amounted to £11.2.5d (£11.12). One of the customers, John Michael Esq, Glassel, had a taste for sheeps’ heads, and between July and October he had no less than 14 dressed, for which he paid 4d (1.6p) each.
For the whole year, the smith’s accounts totalled £192.13.10d (£192.66), and even assuming that he paid his assistant only £1 per week and not £1.2/-, this left him about £140 to pay for his rent and materials and to live on. He would have had a little further income through work done and paid for at the time, and if he had a croft of about five acres, as many country blacksmiths had, this would have enabled him to live cheaply, and provided some income as well.
The yearly income for 1879-80 was not an aberration, as his successor James Forbes’s ledger shows his income from accounts for the year November ‘84 – November ‘85 to have been £199.12.21⁄2d (£199.59). This was for a master blacksmith; one of the most skilled and indispensable of the rural craftsmen. They were certainly not fat cats.
On October 30, 1879, the Mill of Campfield blackmith George Trail made and fitted two new cart wheel rings for Mr Ross, Annsley (sic); cost £1. The cart wheel is nothing less than a triumph of evolutionary engineering design, with its dished shape, which, when the spokes bearing the load are vertical, ensures that the sides and upper part of the wheel are well clear of the cart.
The axle is slightly angled downwards to achieve this effect, and whereas if the axle were a true cylinder in profile, this would cause the hub, or nave of the wheel, to slide up and bear hard under load against the inside of the bearing surface, this tendency is counteracted by the axle being tapered and the bearing thus held in position.
The actual construction of the wheel and its iron rim or tyre is no less sophisticated, with the various parts utilising the inherent characteristics of the materials of preference. Thus the nave is typically of elm, which has a natural resistance to splitting, and into which all of the spokes are mortised; the spokes are of oak, an immensely strong wood; while the felloes or wooden rim are of ash, to utilise its strength and flexibility.
The blacksmith’s part is to fit the bearing and band both ends of the nave with iron to protect and strengthen it; also to fit the iron rim or tyre which grips and holds the wheel together. From time to time, and for various reasons, these rims sometimes had to be re-fitted, or renewed if worn out.
Smiddies always had a ringing stone or steel plate on the ground outside and convenient of access from the smiddy, for the purpose of ringing cart wheels. The stone or plate lay flat on the ground, and had a circular hole in the centre to accommodate the nave of the wheel, so that the rim could lie flat on the stone. People nowadays often mistake ringing stones for granite nether millstones, which at a glance look quite similar.
For an authentic and first-hand account of ringing a cart wheel, I can do no better than quote verbatim an account sent to me by ex-Sgt Robert Moir of the City of Dundee Police, at 92, Tayside’s oldest police pensioner. Rob served his time with his father (The Captain of the Cluny Tug O’War Team which in 1910 beat Midmar – see Leopard of March 2000), at the Vulcan Smiddy, Cluny, before joining the police. Here is his memory in response to my query.
“I will try to reply with my version when it was performed at Vulcan Croft Smiddy (which had three furnaces) by the two Robert Moirs.
“Among our customers were Cluny and Castle Fraser estates, Hunters of Kinnernie (with 365 acres), Scotts of Waulkmill, Dixon, Park of Cluny, &c &c, all of whom had box carts. Our iron merchants in Aberdeen were Glegg and Thomson, Cruickshank and McIntyre and John Smith, and all seemed to be able to supply the required length for a box cart (tyre) 5⁄8 or 3⁄4 in. thick.
“New-made wheels arrived from Alex Cameron, Bob Shepherd and Dod Laing, Joiner at Cluny Estates, whose work was always perfect. Father measured the wheel from the felloes on the length of iron – it was then carried into the large furnace, heated, and both ends made smaller and a hole punched in each end. Now out to the bender, which was adjusted to make the ring the size required. Inside again, a bolt was put through the holes, then (it was) welded with bolt and break out of sight. Measurements again with the toothed wheelie, (this was a metal, hand held wheel or traveller, with notches all the way round the circumference. An accurate measurement of a curved surface such as the outside of a wheel could be obtained in revolutions and notches), and the ring was made the size of its thickness less than the wheel.
“The wheel (was then) laid on the ringing bed, where the centre was filled with water, with four pailfuls nearby. We had three ‘Dogs’ for prising the (red hot) ring on to the wheel. We employed little hammer work except to centre the ring. Owing to the length of my arms, I had the job of cooling the ring after the pailfuls had been applied.
“Allow me to write, father and I were expert at removing the whole red-hot ring from the furnace, taking it through the smiddy door and placing it perfectly on the wheel. Being a new wheel, both sides of the nave had to be rung, and of course the metal bearing driven in to an already made hole in the centre of the nave, to fit the axle on the cart.”
Rob adds: “The Blacksmiths’ Association held meetings at Inverurie, where the price list (for commonly occurring items of blacksmith work) was made up. Father attended.”
Few country smiths carried out the tricky ringing operation often enough to become casually perfect at it, and it was always an anxious moment when the ring was fitted, as news of a failure would soon do the rounds, and could damage and perhaps destroy the smith’s reputation for competence.
In 1890, George Trail, aged by this time 68, retired, and James Forbes took over the business, proudly inscribing the inside of his ledger, “Log Book No 1. Messrs James Forbes and Son, Blacksmiths, Mill of Campfield”. James Forbes at that time was 57 and his son 8, a little young for blacksmithing work, but there was obviously no doubt as to which trade he was to follow. They employed a John Balneaves as a journeyman blacksmith till young James was able to start his apprenticeship. It was obviously a productive relationship, as by March 1901, Balneaves was the blacksmith at Broadstrake, Skene, and the Forbes’s were making farm implements for him.
Nearly all of the smith’s work related to horses, to their harness, or to farm implements. In 1879, to remove a shoe cost 4d (1.6p), while to have one toed, i.e. to have metal added to the toe (“add a bittie ti the tae, ti lat the horsie speil the brae, an’ add a bittie ti the heel, ti gar the horsie pace weel”) was 5d (2p). A new shoe, on the other hand, cost 1/- (5p), while to fit four new shoes on a young horse, which would have taken longer and needed more patience, cost W N Smith, Farmer, Craigour, 4/6 (22p). It may seem that the cost of removing a shoe, as compared to fitting a new one, was excessive, but in fact a more accurate description might be refitting rather than removal. The shoe was removed in seconds, usually because it had become slack, but then the hoof had to be pared, and the frog (inside of the hoof) cut back and cleaned, then the shoe might have to have something done to it before it was refitted and nailed in place.
To sharpen a plough coulter or sock by heating it and hammering it into shape cost 1d (.4p), but if the sock needed to be laid, i.e. to have metal forge welded to it to replace that worn away in use, the charge was 1/- (5p). To lay a coulter required less iron, and cost 6d. (2.5p). Almost the only task which cost £1 or more was to re-metal a plough, i.e. to replace the board and all of the wearing parts. This happened fairly infrequently, but on 11 December, 1890, the ledger shows that “Mr Cruickshank, W. Campfd”, was charged 30/- (£1:50) for, “Plough metalled – steel board”. On 6th September 1890, W Ross Esq, Annesly, had a reaper knife repaired. The reaper was the predecessor of the binder, and arranged the cut corn in bundles which were “tilted” off a platform on to the ground ready to be bound into sheaves by hand (hence the “tilt reaper”. The first mention of a reaper in the ledgers is on 26 August 1880, when Mr Hall, Campfield, bought 6 reaper bolts. The first mention of a binder is on September 5th, 1898 – merely, “Part of Binder repaired” at a cost of 3d (1.2p). This account was to Mr Findlay, Dalhaikie, who may well have had the first binder in the Glassel area. This account also included several reaper repairs.
Although the smith was chiefly concerned with horses and farm implements, he also required to be a jack of all trades, expected to tackle any job connected with metal.
One of the more unusual tasks which Jimmy Forbes tackled in 1903, and which he doubtless later regretted, was for Frank Mitchell of Meikle Mauldron. Mrs Mitchell was the farmer at Mauldron, her husband having apparently died young, and Frank, her son, was left in the unenviable position of having all of the responsibility for running the farm, whilst still remaining a mere servant to his mother. However, Frank got himself one of these new-fangled bikes, which doubtless helped to compensate for his invidious domestic position.
The Mauldrons are brae-set places on the Learney Hill, and the roads in 1903 were not the fine highways we enjoy today. Whether Frank’s legs were just too powerful, or the bike simply not designed for the strait braes of upland Aberdeenshire, is a moot point, but he broke the crank, and on 13 May took it to the smith to have it laid – cost 3d (1.2p).
He returned on June 13, 15 and 19 for the same repair, and doubtless the smith by this time was starting to understand the feelings of the ancient mariner with the albatross hung round his neck. Back came Frank on 11 August, and again on 8, 19 and 23 September. Mercifully hairst and then winter intervened, but on 4 March 1904 Frank was back with his broken crank for the last time. Did the final repair hold? We shall never know.
An average day for the two smiths would have been around 20 shoes fitted, but on 10 August 1903, the two Forbes’s, then aged 60 and 21 respectively, in what must have been a very long day, dealt with the following:- 28 new shoes (these would have been pre-made during slack periods, in a variety of sizes, but still required to be finally adjusted to size): 12 shoes toed: 9 shoes removed: a theat mended: a sling mended: cart repaired and 4 bat nails supplied (these were hand-made wedge type nails, commonly used in conjunction with wooden wedges or dooks when affixing wooden framing to masonry): 3 bolts to reaper supplied. For each of the 49 shoes, either removed, new or toed, the old shoe would have had to be removed, the necessary work done to the replacement, the hoof had to be cleaned and trimmed, and the replacement shoe fitted and nailed in place. For this they earned a total of £2:3:6 (£2:17p).
As well as to Rob Moir of Arbroath (above), who is no stranger to Leopard, my thanks are due to his life-long pal George Leiper (86), of Ellon, who at 16, borrowed a plough from Rob’s father, and proceeded to win a ploughing championship with it. These two stalwarts have helped me decipher a number of technical terms, helped in the later stages by Bill Cobban, a mere youth of 74, who followed his father as blacksmith at the Monymusk smiddy, and who in turn enlisted the help of the redoubtable Duncan Downie of Kemnay.
Most of the puzzles have been solved, but a few still remain. The books refer in places to “sock P laid”, and to a “P shoe”. The “sock P laid” seems to describe the laying of a sock point only (8d or 3.2p.), as opposed to the sock and feather (1/- or 5p). The “P Shoe” appears only in the winter months, and we conclude it refers to a shoe adapted with sockets for inserting “Points”, which are frost nails also known as “Sharps” or “Cogs”, to give the horse a better grip on icy ground. However, in the ploughing season, the smith also sells “Blunts” and “Blunt cogs”. On 11th March, 1902, an entry in the day book against Corfieldy records “2 treadwoodies 4 hooks 4 links – 10d (4p) (a treadwoodie or treadwiddie is the coupling between the yoke and whatever is being pulled).
Mr Findlay, Dalhaikie, in August 1898 got a bill including the item, “3 whippletrees 2 new hasps 1 laid 2 hasps tightned stepel theat repd 10 links new hook 1 laid” – all for 3/- (15p). Is a whippletree some sort of a yoke or swingletree? I think we may need to appeal to Professor Sandy Fenton for help here!
JOHN DUFF B.E.M, was a police inspector at Banchory, and had a 33-year involvement with mountain rescue in the North-East. Family man, writer, and author of A Bobby on Ben Macdhui.
TweetThis is an article from the April 2005 edition of Leopard Magazine. To read much more like this every month, subscribe to Leopard Magazine.