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We have been commissioned to make a gate for Carnaby Street in London; it will be made in Stainless Steel and Glass and will have a 1960’s feel about it. A prestige public art commission for us.

When a young enthusiastic and ambitious Chris Topp started up his own blacksmith business in rural North Yorkshire, he could not have dreamt that 30 years later he could boast amongst his clients Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, St Paul's Cathedral, Hampton Court and a long list of stately homes, cathedrals and major historic public and commercial buildings.

This year, 2012, is the 30thanniversary Chris Topp Ltd. The company is now regarded as the market leader in Britain in the restoration of heritage ironwork, particularly in their speciality of genuine wrought iron.   They believe they are the only company in the world still producing wrought iron!

They also have an excellent reputation in the design and production of new high quality ironwork, working not only in wrought iron, but with a variety of metals – cast iron, mild and stainless steel, bronze, brass and copper included.  

And while Chris Topp appreciates the prestige and image boost that results from working on large national heritage sites, he and his team are equally at home creating small objects  making repairs to  churches ‘ ironwork and commissions forprivate houses. 

The company also administer within their two rural workshops north of York, the Real Wrought Iron Company which produces charcoal and puddled wrought iron which is bothused in their own work and supplied to other blacksmiths.  Genuine wrought iron -resistant to corrosion- can last centuries and was produced many centuries before the industrial revolution eventually lead to the introduction of mass-produced mild steel.

Today the company has 15 employees including a number of highly skilled smiths with various specialist forging experience – a far cry from Chris and one young apprentice back in 1982.  He recalls his proud first commission of making the historic ironwork at Middleton Hall near York when it became a luxury hotel.  It earned him £9,000, a huge sum in those days.

Over the years there has been steady growth in the company which is now fortunate to regularly handle contracts worth hundreds of thousands of pounds from well-known commercial and government bodies.Chris has a real passion particularly in the field of restoration of ancient ironwork, and new ironwork for ancient buildings. A good example was made last year (2011) when the company created a new altar screen for Ely Cathedral using ancient materials and techniques but to a modern design.  Says Chris Topp: “it gives my team and I quite a thrill when we realise that this item is likely to remain in this location, untouched for centuries”.  The screen and accompanying items were made in genuine wrought iron and re-rolled from anchor chains acquired from the former Gibraltar naval yard.

There is a huge public misconception on what is genuine wrought iron however Chris Topp& Co are experts in the field.  Often any form of intricate iron work in gardens or on gates and railings is incorrectly referred to as being ‘wrought iron’ while in fact being  made in cast iron or mild steel.   You are certainly not likely to find any product in your local DIY store made of genuine wrought iron and the difference in value between the ‘real thing’ and imitations is enormous as is the life expectancy of the two products.

It is of no surprise therefore that the company is often called in by Trading Standards officers and other bodies to advise as to the authenticity of an alleged item of ‘wrought iron’.  ‘Important’ says Chris, ‘because of the need to increase the understanding of the production of traditional iron materials’.

To Chris too many priceless pieces of historic wrought iron are being ruined forever by the repair or restoration with iron and steel materials and not real wrought iron.   He works tirelessly in the field of metallurgy and archaeology in raising the standard of restoration work by blacksmiths and bodies working in the field of historic buildings.  He is frequently consulted on archaeology by bodies such as the BBC 'Time Team' film makers.

As Chris Topp looks to the future he has increasing worries about the training of new entrants to heritage ironwork.  He was a leading light in the formation in 2009 of the National Heritage Ironwork Group (NHIG). 

NHIG aims to preserve the skills of ancient ironwork smiths and thanks to help from the Heritage Lottery Fund has set up a training bursary.  There is little formal training for heritage blacksmiths in the Europe and Chris Topp and Co frequently employ other nationalities keen to gain experience in ornamental design and restoration work.

Chris would also like to see the profile of blacksmiths raised and their artistic work recognised as an art form.  Although there are thousands of great ornamental ironwork items in this country blacksmiths are seldom represented as artists.

Chris would like to encourage the incorporation of high quality ornamental metalwork into the design of prestigious new buildings.The provision of gates and railings is often left to last when they are the first thing visitors see and the opportunity is lost to give that all important first good impression?

Historic Scotland’s Technical adviser Ali Davey in a recent condition assessment report reported that the welding of traditional ironwork is not ideal for two reasons: such repairs alter the visual appearance of the ironwork and are not in keeping with the traditional construction techniques. Furthermore, such welding techniques can cause further corrosion: this method requires the introduction of a rod, composed of a dissimilar metal to the original ironwork, to the joint to form the weld. Placing dissimilar metal in direct contact with one another can create and accelerate the cycle of corrosion, referred to as galvanic or bi-metallic corrosion.

The Yorkshire church where literary sisters Charlotte and Emily Brontë are buried has celebrated reaching a fundraising target for desperately-needed repairs – only to be told that another £50,000 was needed for the project.

We were commissioned to do work restoration work at this church back in February 2008, to follow their current difficulties click here.

In 1998 Chris Topp & Co were contacted by the town of Fareham in Hampshire to design and supervise a public art project based upon the famous former local resident Henry Cort, the ‘Father of Puddled  Iron’. In 1784 Henry Cort patented a revolutionary method of producing wrought iron in industrial quantities using coal as fuel and thus played a major role in enabling the Industrial Revolution.

We decided to hold a trans-european competition to design twelve items of iron-based artwork to garnish a new pedestrian area in West Street.  The first round of the competition raised entries from 105 smiths who submitted a total of nearly seven hundred designs! Obviously there had to be a selection procedure, so we organised a second round by selecting 36 designers and paying each a small design fee to resubmit. The entries were judged by a committee of locals and experts and the winners identified as follows;

• Michael Haase from Germany
• Jouko Nieminen from Finland
• Ryszard Mazur from Poland
• Igor Andrukhin  from Russia
• Edward Fokin from Russia
• Vladimir Sokhonovich from Russia
• Chris Brammall from Cumbria
• Steven Lunn from Northumberland
• Kate and Rick from Yorkshire
• Charles Normandale

So we had three Russians who between them had to make four large sculptures, but at a time when the Russian banks could not be trusted, how were we going to pay them? Not to mention being able to check on the work as it progressed.

The answer we agreed on was for them to come to Yorkshire where we would set up a special workshop in a barn we were able to rent from a farmer in the village of Carlton Husthwaite. The Russians didn’t need work permits because they were in fact bringing their own work into Britain. So the barn was fitted out with two fires and an old steam hammer borrowed from Beamish Museum and the three Russians moved in together into a north Yorkshire cottage. Well, it wasn’t long before they made their mark; in fact the village had never seen the like before. What with drinking the pub dry, and the road accidents, and their constant walking up and down the village street, during the eight months they were here between their workshop and ours, they soon became village personalities.

To mark the occasion we decided to hold a blacksmiths’ gathering or ‘forge-in’ in the farm workshop. We rented another of the farmer’s barns, duly cleaned of cow manure, and installed a stage for the band and a bar. A hog was purchased and the spit set up, the camping field opened up and fifty blacksmiths turned up for the weekend.  Igor and Edward had designed a sculpture for the assembled smiths to make over the two days, following the ethos of the Fareham sculptures, to be made from recycled wrought iron, in this case old fencing bars. And so the Flower was born.

To mark the end of their stay – their families having come to live in the village by this time – they wanted to put on a party for the village. So we had a Russian evening with Russian food prepared by Lena, Russian dancing by Galya and vodka of course for the adults. Everyone came. It was a great celebration, which went on till well after midnight, when Igor made a speech and presented the flower to the assembled villagers.

And there it stands on the village green, and apart from the brass plaque with the names of the designers, as time passes the events of that year will be forgotten, but this small north Yorkshire village still treasures its bit of Russian modern art.

We recently started work at the Queen's Theatre in London – home of the west end stage hit musical Les Miserables, we have been commissioned to build and fix a new canopy to the entrance, a challenge as the theatre remains open and is in one of the busiest areas of London! The work is due for completion towards to end of January.

Wrought iron gates for a private house in Hampshire, all made in genuine wrought iron.

These gates are part of a suite of ironwork for a lovely garden in Hampshire all based on different interpretations of the same concept. The pieces were designed to work well individually but also to complement each other as a whole. The aim was to create a design with a contemporary ironwork twist but with strong references to traditional British blacksmith ironwork.