Photos

mock up blacksmith shop

similar

A miscellany of all the other photos I took on the Open Day at Sandford Mill.  Chelmsford is of course the home of the Marconi works, the first discovery of the radio signal, and then all the technology that has led to our televisions, aeroplanes etc today.  The town is very proud of him, but to wander around valves, transistors and crystal sets is not very interesting.  In the large steel barn were two very large waggons, built around the end of the nineteenth century.  There great iron wheels would have played havoc with the ground.  The one thing you notice is how much energy must have been needed to pull the wagon, and how many people, and horses of course, would have been needed to run the farm.
The other thing I noted was the blacksmith mock-up, today the farrier comes to the horse, but I remember riding down to the blacksmith for my pony to be shod, the strange smell as the shoe was burnt on to the foot (it did'nt hurt) and the blacksmith with his apron on, holding the leg of a horse between his legs trying to control a temperamental beast.

This is a rather elegant wagon

Old tv and radiogram