Nigel Tyas Ironwork
Nigel Tyas Ironwork, a blacksmith workshop in rural Yorkshire, UK, dedicated to preserving traditional ironworking skills. For two decades, their skilled team has crafted exquisite chandeliers, lights, curtain poles, and fire irons, blending ancient techniques with modern technology.
Edition 3 Feature (September 2021)
Words by: Gareth Lowe
Location: Yorkshire, UK
Photo Credits: ©Adam Galliford @adam_galliford_photography
We are blacksmiths. Our workshop is in rural Yorkshire, at the foot of the Pennine Hills. We love where we are and what we do. Nigel Tyas Ironwork was set up 20 years ago to keep traditional ironworking skills alive in the UK and we’ve been forging our craft ever since. We have carried the torch in the face of mass production and the outsourcing of our trade overseas. And on we go, heating metal and working it by hand and hammer to design and create beautiful and useful things for our customers’ homes.
Our skilled team of five make chandeliers, lights and lamps, curtain poles and fire irons. The material of the blacksmith is wrought iron – in modern-day terms, this means mild steel composed of iron and just the right amount of carbon to make it malleable when heated to above 1,000°C in the forge. We use many tools and techniques that have literally been around for more than 1,000 years. With our anvil, hammers, tongs and jigs, we work our metal into unique homewares. Many of our products are then carefully and slowly fired to bring out the natural depth and beauty of the iron. All of our pieces are finished with either wax or lacquer to give a dark, authentic natural black appearance or a lighter, burnished steel look.
