Blackmoor Apple Day

I've got my posts a little out of order as the shows have been coming thick and fast as Autumn draws us towards the end of the season. On Saturday I was at the Weald & Down for the first day of their Autumn celebration. On Sunday alone there were 4 shows that I could have attended.Even my appetite for shows was a little daunted by the thought. I chose to go to the Blackmoor apple estate for some simple reasons. It's local being just around the corner close to the village of Selbourne, it's a charity event and I am becoming something of an apple maniac over the years so I wanted to support it.




Blackmoor apple estate is a farm with 200+ acres of apple orchards. The show is held in the village by the packhouse, nursery farm shop and church, a lovely setting. It's a new show for me and I've been talking to the Blackmoor estate about organising some rural crafts at the show, so I felt a little responsible for prodding Nick and John ( the blacksmiths from Old Kiln forge at Tilford nr Farnham) and Matt (timber framer and shingle maker) to come and join me.

Perhaps being a little tired I struggled to get my shelter and demonstration up and running and once ready was besieged by visitors so failed to get around the rest of the apple-centric show. You'll have to put with with photos of us instead. Although it was a cold breeze with a little rain the worst of the weather held off for the day and there were a few thousand visitors. Our demonstrations seemed to be very well appreciated and John even received a well deserved round of applause for one of his demonstrations.

At the moment Nick and John are using quite a lot of charcoal for their fuel. I was surprised to see large lumps of chestnut charcoal on the hearth. Apparently chestnut charcoal burns hot and fast and is quite brittle so it's easy to knock it down to smaller lumps once it's burning. With my limited experience of blacksmithing my own tools I like to use charcoal, it's cleaner than coke but of course you get through a lot if you use a large hearth so you do need a local cheap supply. Perhaps us woodies are starting to have an effect upon our local metalbashers?




Every time I looked Matt seemed to be talking with a crowd of interested people who regarded his axe with obvious respect.

But by the afternoon he'd still managed to produce a useful pile of cleft oak shingles

Without the sun it was quite cold and the forge was in use as a hand warmer when not heating metal. Here modelled superbly by Harriet and Charlotte.



It was a rolling pin day for some reason, and I made a few extra long pins. Getting a 15+ inch flat finish always puts me in my own little world and time whizzed before I knew it, I was the last one at the show as usual. At least it wasn't far to come home. A lovely local show and as a bonus the vicar donated me some large rounds of sycamore from the churchyard.