THE OLD SMITHY BAGINTON 
News cutting dated 25-08-1964 A new tenant for the Old Smithy at Baginton village was found during 0ctober 2006,an artist blacksmith is renovating the forge in order to get it up and running again,here is a small flashback to 1964 when the place was used as an artists studio.
When I first went to work at Baginton airport back in 1960 as a trainee aircraft fitter,I used to pass the Old Smithy every day on my bike,the place is near to the entrance at the airport,the place always used to intrigue me and over the years I have seen a steady procession of new tenants come and go,some of them had very little if any regard for this historic building,what it really needed was someone to move in with feelings for the place.
Three years ago I wrote to the Parish council who were in the process of being the benefactors for the Old Smithy from the Coventry council,my intentions was to have a go at creating an art studio in the building,as one of the stipulations was that it must be used for some craft purpose within the community,and what could be better than art and crafts ?
Anyway over the months correspondence came back and forth between myself and the council and I heard nothing more in the past 12 months about the place ? however it appears that someone has been found as a suitable tenant,an artist welder who creates sculptures in metal,I met him yesterday as he was knee deep and busy starting to restore the building,he certainly has his work cut out with a crumbling wall,electrics to fix and many other large jobs,it made me realise that it would have been too large a task for myself and I am pleased that a perfect person has been found in order to preserve the history of the building,he showed me around inside,the first time that I had been inside for many years,a most unusual layout and he showed me how a new portion had been built on in the nineteen thirties,the shackles where the horses were tethered,and also pointed out that the front of the building would have once been open,he has already made the place secure with a new door and plans to build a module inside one half to house his draughting equipment and office,this is ideal as he is not allowed to alter the original fabric of the building.
Although he is in employment as a nurse he does the welding already in another place in Coventry behind the Rose and Crown pub,however environmental problems can be an issue and here he can bang and thump to his hearts content as the building is quite remote.
When I asked him how he came to know about the place,he said that he literally stumbled across it by accident,whilst exploring by bike to find somewhere suiotable.
I think that a perfect match in heaven has been made here,a skilled craftsman and mated with an old historic property with great social history,I wish him well in his ventures and will record any progress here in the future.
The cutting above is from my collection of anything that is of interest to me.