I was introduced to the animal head fire irons by David Wright in Chiddingfold Forge. He had made many Rams head designs which he attributed to CoSira in their original form. Many variations have been made with twisted horns etc. He then showed me a design for a horsehead fireiron that he had seen being made by a Welsh blacksmith called (I believe) Ivan Smith, I loved the concept but I tried a different approach to making the mane which turned out nicely. There was a class at our local show for a set of fire irons, so we made a set to enter and sell and we were awarded first place much to our delight.
This set won much attention and I was asked to make another set some years later by a farrier friend. He asked that I incorporate a horseshoe into the design for the companion stand. I made a large cart horse shoe for the base and a spider-bar shoe for the tool-hanger. It was made to fit in a large inglenook fireplace and had to be much larger than the original set that we made. I made this set as a solo venture as Dave has long since retired. I entered it into the ironwork class at Dorset show and it was given third place which I was pleased with given the standard of competition.
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