Category: From the Forge – News

If we had to name one product we make that can compete at the very highest level of handcrafted ironwork, it would be our bespoke bay window curtain poles. We pride ourselves on our accuracy (always dependent, of course, on your measurement accuracy) and on our delivering a perfectly wrought pole that fits your bay window space, hand in glove. We have a measuring input system on our website that checks your measurements and works out, to the smallest margin of error, if those measurements are accurate.

To help you measure up your bay window’s dimensions, we have made a helpful video for those of you with a two bend bay window below.

The principles of measurement are the same for any bay window. Please click here for our bay window selection page where you can choose your bay and input your measurements.

We’ve also produced a video showing you how to install your two bend bay window curtain pole below, the principles of which apply to any size bay window.

We also tackle, with some enthusiasm, bay window spaces with irregular shapes. Bespoke, to us, really means made to exact measure. We are here and willing to help you with your problematic bay window spaces and we are always delighted to receive this kind of feedback from customers…

“Our lounge bay window was a particularly complex shape. We found Richard’s “can do” attitude incredibly refreshing, seeing this challenge as an opportunity, not a problem. The final product has been superbly made. It fits the window beautifully, and the curtains run smoothly along the intricate shape. We feel most fortunate to have a piece of beautiful craftsmanship like this in our home.” Image above.

Please visit our website where you’ll find easy instructions to order a bespoke bay pole or call us if you have any questions.

Made by the Forge is involved this year with creating a wildlife corridor by partnering with Houghton Hall Estates in North Norfolk. Richard visited his old friend Head Gamekeeper Robert Hall who filled us in on the tree planting strategy.

“Trees on the left hand side were planted by the estate about fifteen years ago. The other side is being planted now and will provide a passageway. Whilst the hedge has been clipped on the track side of the hedge the other side is left unclipped leaving all the berries and hips on it, cut on a two year rotation but only one side is ever clipped so there is always a side with the hips and berries.

“At the start of the hedge’s life, the top is trimmed too to suppress the growth upwards and to encourage fullness lower to the ground. It also helps the slower growing trees catch up. It’s ideal to have a thick hedge and to not cut it is not managing it. It needs a really good base in the hedges for the ground-nesting birds. By providing thicker hedges lower to the ground, we are proud to say we have a very healthy population of English partridges while they are becoming scarce around much of the UK.

“We need to take care of the insects first and foremost otherwise everything else falls flat. Soil health helps with insect health, and everything benefits with organic farming, sympathetic farming, crop choices, pollinator mixes and the various bird seed mixes we grow. By doing that, it reaps its rewards with the farmland birds because without insects, cover and habitat you just have a sedentary population where they just exist. They only have a replacement population but will never increase in numbers. If you want to bump up all farmland birds you need insects to increase. Our results are phenomenal. Houghton Estate has had the highest insect density nationally for the last three years.

“Our beetle bank was established two years ago in the harvest time of 2021 by ploughing one way then ploughing the other to create a ridge which is then left to settle. It was then grassed in the spring of ’22. There are margins either side planted with millet, kale, chicory, sainfoin, vetch, trefoil, crimson clover, American sweet clover and some others. All this variety is good for everything. This winter the millet has been stripped bare by little birds. It has provided food this winter and it’s offered cover too. This spring the kale and the brassicas are a natural source of nitrogen feeding the soil. We have fodder radish for feed for the gold finches over the winter. Doing good above the ground and below the ground at the same time is the trick.”

To see a short 1 minute video clip of Richard and Robert click here.

So how do we at Made by the Forge convince you to sign up to our own modest offerings? There are a few good reasons… By signing up to our thoughtful, measured and infrequent communication, you get to legitimately claim you are supporting the upholding of one of the nation’s valuable and traditional crafts, the art of the blacksmith. As a valued customer, we have no desire to alienate and annoy you. We want to bring you in to our orbit and show you with short video clips how we do what we do, how we creatively recycle our offcuts into beautiful products for the home that you need only buy once and allow you into the Forge to get a peek behind the curtain. Authenticity is very important to us and this way, we can prove it.

These videos will also prove to everyone that handmade means handmade and that a lifetime guarantee is no idle boast. And then there’s the tree we plant for every order.

Signing up, you’ll be supporting craftspeople who really care about the expert work they do for your satisfaction, practical use and simple aesthetic appreciation. Iron, as we always say, just works. Finally, you’ll be part of a discerning company of like-minded, responsible consumers who demand the best while still looking out for the needs of the planet. Made by the Forge is a small company whose ongoing ambition is to make a big difference both in practice and leading by example. Feel free to join the club! We’d love to have you.

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Your kitchen often becomes the focal point of your home, a place of creativity, sociability and warmth. ‘Breaking bread’ together is the fundamental bonding ritual we share with others. Perhaps in the run up to Christmas or even as a New Year’s resolution, you’ve decided to make your cooking space more efficient, practical and stylish. We at Made by the Forge have just the thing. A kitchen rail runs behind your sink or above your oven and acts as a convenient location to hang every utensil a budding Gordon Ramsey needs, each one close at hand.

Made by the Forge offers two designs of kitchen rail, flat is The Hawthorn Range or round The Blackthorn Range utilising slightly different shaped ‘S’ hooks depending on the design. We make two standard sizes of rail with a generous number of ‘S’ hooks per rail. But kitchens and indeed homes are never ever identical or conform to a fixed size so we also offer a bespoke kitchen rail service. Measure up your wall or walls and let us know the details and be sure to tell us how many hooks you will be needing for each personalised length of rail.

You’re also subtly making a statement of a sort. Kitchen rails let your guests know that you take your food seriously whatever the level of your culinary skill. And if the soufflé still doesn’t rise, it can’t be because your kitchen lacks style! If your friends make appreciative noises at your new kitchen adornments, don’t keep our rails a secret. Remind them these rails will last a lifetime and of our ‘plant a tree for every order’ pledge and then you’ll both be helping the planet.