Iron in the soul – and in the garden:
Incorporating ironwork into your garden designs
No garden designer can have failed to notice the increasingly prominent - and
innovative - use made of ironwork by the industry’s trail-blazers and trend-setters.
Indeed, the Best Show Garden and the Best Urban Garden at the 2008 Chelsea Flower
Show both incorporated ironwork to great effect. As these gardens (along with many
others at Chelsea 2008) vividly illustrate, ‘ironwork’ is an incredibly versatile
and wide-ranging medium with huge creative potential that extends way beyond gates
or railings and that is ultimately limited only by our own imaginations.
Ironwork (by which we mean predominantly hand-crafted bespoke metalwork as opposed
to standardised mass-produced offerings) is a fantastic medium for pieces that provide
the ‘finishing touches’ that complement your core design such as furniture, arbours,
pergolas, screens, birdbaths or purely decorative sculptural pieces that simply
provide a focal point or other visual interest – the funky corkscrews for example,
that we designed and produced for ‘A Welcome Sight’ by Adam Frost, the Best Urban
Garden at Chelsea 2008.
Ironwork is equally suited however, to elements that are more integral to the whole
design. These might be structural elements such as the pools and rills we produced
for Adam Frost’s 2008 Chelsea garden, which were really quite central to his design.
On the other hand, they could just as readily provide the stylistic detailing that
can help pull a design together: we produced and installed all the galvanised mild
steel edging, planter cladding and trellis work for the RHS’s ‘Growing Tastes’ Garden
at last year’s Hampton Court Palace Flower Show which, in addition to reinforcing
the garden’s very contemporary look, also reflected its highly functional and practical
nature.
Don’t however, conclude from this that ironwork is suitable only for contemporary
or urban designs – far from it. Ironwork’s versatility, and the skill of the blacksmith
who makes it, means that it will complement any design style and garden location
whether contemporary, formal, romantic, classical, urban or rural. That versatility
relates primarily to the almost infinite range of possibilities offered by hot-forged
metal in terms of shape, line and structure; from classic, fluid and delicate to
modern, angular and chunky plus everything else in between. It relates just as much
though, to texture (leaving individual hammer-blows visible made our ‘corkscrews’
wonderfully tactile), finish (zinc-coating, oil-and-rust, lacquer, brush polishing
or mirror polishing) and even colour. While one currently tends to see either ‘metal-coloured’
metalwork or the more traditional black, any RAL shade can in fact be used. Having
said that, we tend to caution against using colours that are too bright. Unless
you want to achieve a particular effect they can in our view, look somewhat ‘Disney-fied’
and can also date very quickly.
Whilst we, like most other blacksmiths, work predominantly in mild steel, a variety
of other metals can be used as an alternative or in combination. Stainless steel
for example, is very popular at the moment and certainly has a real ‘wow’-factor
although it is quite a bit more expensive than mild steel. Then when you realise
that copper, bronze and brass can also be used, typically as accents or for contrast,
you can really let your imagination off the leash. And as for when you think about
all the other materials that blacksmiths often incorporate into their work – glass,
stone, wood, crystals, not forgetting water and light – well, then you can let your
imagination absolutely run riot!
It is possible that by this stage you might feel slightly bewildered and daunted
by all these wonderful possibilities and simply don’t know where to start or how
to specify what you might want. Don’t let that hold you back, as any blacksmith
(or artist-blacksmith) worth the name will almost certainly be able to develop even
the simplest of sketches, preferably within the context of the garden for which
it is intended, into a detailed design proposal that will include recommendations
for stock sizes, fixings and installation, information on corrosion resistance,
maintenance and paint types, as well as an indication of timescale and cost. Well,
that’s what we at Anwick Forge do anyway!
It may be that you don’t have a clear enough idea of what you want to provide a
sketch, but even this needn’t be a hurdle. If you can simply provide some basic
parameters and an idea of what you want the ironwork to achieve, then your blacksmith
will be able to apply his or her own creativity and understanding of the language
and potential of hot-forged metal to the realisation of your outline concept and
this was precisely how Adam’s ‘corkscrews’ came about: he asked us to come up with
something sympathetic to the general style of the garden that was clean, simple
and unfussy and that provided some added visual interest – and then gave us a free
rein. Adam absolutely loved the result, but knew that he could never have come up
with what we had designed simply because he had never realised that that kind of
thing was possible.
This means that the only remaining hurdle is finding a blacksmith to work with.
Fortunately, this is not as difficult as you might think. Whilst we would naturally
love every garden designer who would like to incorporate some ironwork into his
or her designs to beat a path to Anwick Forge, we recognise that this is unfortunately
not feasible. Having said that, we work with clients across much of central England
as well as in London, and are always happy to travel for an interesting commission.
In order to find another equally suitable blacksmith closer to where you are located
it is a good idea to get in touch with the British Artist Blacksmiths Association
(BABA). The easiest way to do this is to email
babasecretary@baba.org.uk
or visit their website
www.baba.org.uk
where you will find information on the current Honorary Secretary who will be able
to provide you with the contact details of BABA members in your area.
Like us, these blacksmiths will typically be producing one off pieces to order rather
than runs of standard, one-size-fits-all products, or simply assembling sets of
‘cut and paste’ components. Like us, they will invariably embrace the unusual and
even the wacky with enthusiasm rather than dismissing it as ‘not what we do’. And
like us, they will be using classical forging techniques, probably complemented
by modern technologies such as electric welding, water-jet cutting and electro-polishing
where appropriate. When you find the blacksmith who is not only able to undertake
the work required but who, more importantly, is also on your wavelength, you can
be confident that he or she will be able to provide you with a unique end product
displaying craftsmanship, character and soul that is completely tailored to the
needs of your design.
Contact details for Anwick Forge:
01526 830303
07718 316394
info@anwickforge.co.uk
www.anwickforge.co.uk
© Fran Mackereth,
Anwick Forge, 2009. By Fran Mackereth, a partner at Anwick Forge in Lincolnshire
25th January 2009