Sheffield Craft Skills

[Keith Crawshaw]

We have just completed the uploading of over 30 additional films to the Ken Hawley Tool Collection YouTube channel featuring a series of Sheffield Craft Skills including forging blades, mark making, table knife grinding, fork polishing, etc.  Many of the craft skills have either disappeared totally or are left in the hands of a few.  You can find our channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/KenHawleyCollectionTrust/videos

[tozzin]

I remember Eric Tingle very well when he relocated to the Cutless Works of George Butler on Sidney Street, when he retired he was living on Newfield Green Road up to his death, a lovely bloke always smiling, I also knew Gilbert Hukin, bit of a ladies man, I met him when he used to call to see John “ Jack” Donnelly at his Western Works on Portobello where I first entered the trade, the video of Gilbert working is exactly what I learned to do, from grinding right up to mirror finishing the forks, the items Gilbert was working on was known as a Pot Fork, I worked on these and other spoons and forks all O.B.R.S., that’s oval bolster round shank, the mainstay of Donnelly’s was carver forks. Gilbert was pointed out to me by John Mannion that he dyed his hair jet black.

 

 

[southside]

On 09/10/2020 at 14:03, Keith Crawshaw said:

We have just completed the uploading of over 30 additional films to the Ken Hawley Tool Collection YouTube channel featuring a series of Sheffield Craft Skills including forging blades, mark making, table knife grinding, fork polishing, etc.  Many of the craft skills have either disappeared totally or are left in the hands of a few.  You can find our channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/KenHawleyCollectionTrust/videos

Thanks for the link to the Ken Hawley video collection Keith.

Seeing the old forge at Greenhill brought back some fond childhood memories from the 50s, stopping off at the forge on my way home from school, looking through the open window, mesmerized by the sparks created as the Blacksmith hammered and shaped the pruning knives from glowing bars of steel.     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgFuJEgt5dQ&t=139s

Attached to the forge building is a stone stile, once leading to a footpath going across open fields before making its way over to Meadowhead.  Greenhill council estate was built on these fields in the 1930s.

Sections of the original path can still be walked. A little stone bridge takes you over the Abbey Brook, the path then climbs up between the houses and ends at a junction in the middle of the Chancet Wood estate. The original path joined Meadowhead somewhere between Morrisons and the Waggon & Horses garage.

 

 

 

[tozzin]

1 hour ago, southside said:

Thanks for the link to the Ken Hawley video collection Keith.

Seeing the old forge at Greenhill brought back some fond childhood memories from the 50s, stopping off at the forge on my way home from school, looking through the open window, mesmerized by the sparks created as the Blacksmith hammered and shaped the pruning knives from glowing bars of steel.     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgFuJEgt5dQ&t=139s

Attached to the forge building is a stone stile, once leading to a footpath going across open fields before making its way over to Meadowhead.  Greenhill council estate was built on these fields in the 1930s.

Sections of the original path can still be walked. A little stone bridge takes you over the Abbey Brook, the path then climbs up between the houses and ends at a junction in the middle of the Chancet Wood estate. The original path joined Meadowhead somewhere between Morrisons and the Waggon & Horses garage.

 

 

 

It’s great that this relic of yesteryear still survives.

[southside]

23 hours ago, southside said:

Thanks for the link to the Ken Hawley video collection Keith.

Seeing the old forge at Greenhill brought back some fond childhood memories from the 50s, stopping off at the forge on my way home from school, looking through the open window, mesmerized by the sparks created as the Blacksmith hammered and shaped the pruning knives from glowing bars of steel.     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgFuJEgt5dQ&t=139s

Attached to the forge building is a stone stile, once leading to a footpath going across open fields before making its way over to Meadowhead.  Greenhill council estate was built on these fields in the 1930s.

Sections of the original path can still be walked. A little stone bridge takes you over the Abbey Brook, the path then climbs up between the houses and ends at a junction in the middle of the Chancet Wood estate. The original path joined Meadowhead somewhere between Morrisons and the Waggon & Horses garage.

 

 

 

In 1845 Micha Camm, Scythe maker, brother of John Camm owner of the White Swan in Greenhill, applied for the patent on a reaping hook he`d designed.