Wheels On Fire

We went to an open day at Chedham's Yard in Wellesbourne today. It's an old Blacksmiths and Wheelwrights yard used for a hundred and fifty years by five generations of the Chedham family until 'modern' technology took over and it went out of use in 1965. Plans were made to restore the place and then in 2006 the project won funds from the BBC Restoration Village programme and it is now a really interesting place to go and visit.
The two trades went together as the wheels were made of local wood, oak, ash and elm, and then the red hot tyres were fixed into place and pulled the whole thing tight as they cooled and contracted. Luckily for us the blacksmiths were working there today, they were bashing this bit of metal to make a wheel jack.