Heart of the Nation: Cheshunt 3678
Blacksmith Brendan Thompson sources metal from old wagons and farm machinery that’s lain in paddocks for over a century - and turns it into beautiful objects.
In the village of Cheshunt in Victoria’s Upper King Valley, Brendan Thompson practises a trade that’s as old as human civilisation. Approaching his 4 Elements blacksmith shop, you’ll hear Irish folk or country music wafting out of a speaker, mixed in with Thompson’s own singing and the rhythmic beating of a hammer on hot metal, keeping time with the music. Poke your head through the door and you’ll see sparks flying as he hammers that yellow-hot metal, his blue heeler Lola – named after the famous Kinks song – contentedly asleep nearby.
What sort of things does he produce? “Not horseshoes, mate,” the amiable 54-year-old replies. His bread and butter is making camp equipment – stands for hanging a billy or camp oven over a fire, say – but his passion is creating artistic pieces: exquisite metal flowers, candle holders, decorative wall art. “Anything that gets the creative juices flowing,” Thompson says. His favourite raw material is the wrought iron that’s found in old wagons and farm equipment lying in paddocks all around the High Country. “Some of the stuff is 150 years old,” he says. “Wrought iron is easy to work with, and has a lovely grain like wood. I’ll barter with the farmer for it – usually I’ll make him something.”
Thompson has an insider’s knowledge, because he grew up in this area; his first job as a teenager was picking tobacco in the King Valley, and he would join his dad and Uncle Johnny (“the John Wayne of the family,” he says) on extended camps in the High Country, riding horses, fishing for trout and catching wild brumbies.
He’s been blacksmithing “on and off” for 35 years, and full-time for the past five. Why does he love it? “I think it’s the freedom of creativity,” he says. There’s a sort of magic in the process of using only hands and heat to wrangle lumps of metal into lovely, useful objects. “People see a bit of rusty old metal and think it’s just a piece of rubbish. But I see something more; I know I can make it into something beautiful. You’re only limited by your own imagination.”