Today's Object of the Week is a plaque which marks the unlikely, but true, link between a County Durham town and swordmaking.
Long before the ironworks, Shotley Bridge was the heart of Britain’s swordmaking industry.
The origins of this industry here dated to about 1691 when a group of Lutheran swordmakers from Solingen in Germany settled at Shotley Bridge after leaving their homeland to escape religious persecution.
The move much dismayed their fellows back in Solingen, in the Ruhr, and they were accused of betraying the secrets of the Guild. The prime secret was of 'the hollow sword' - its blades had a triangular or diamond-shaped profile, with a hollow centre. This made them light but lethal.
A terrace of cottages was built for the community in Wood Street near the river. These were demolished in the 1960s, but a plaque, courtesy of the Shotley Bridge Village Trust, now marks the site where the cottages once stood.
Shotley Bridge had probably been chosen because of the rich iron deposits in the area and because of the fast flowing waters of the River Derwent, which were ideal for tempering swords.
Another factor may have been the remoteness of the area, as the swordmakers were keen to preserve their trade secrets. The Derwent Valley seemed an unlikely setting for industrial espionage.
It is also worth noting that the swordmakers were able to employ the services of the famous local engraver, Thomas Bewick of Newcastle.
Gradually the German families who settled in the area - the Woper, Henkal, Vooz, Moll, Faws and Oley families = abandoned their native language and all but the family name of Oley disappeared.
There is a story that one of the Shotley swordmaking fraternity, a certain William Oley (Ohlig), was once challenged by two other swordmakers to see who could make the sharpest and most resilient sword.
On the day of the challenge, the three men turned up, but it seemed that Oley had forgotten to bring an example of his work. The two other swordmakers, assuming that he had been unable to make a sword of a suitable standard, began to boastfully demonstrate the strength, sharpness and resiliency of their workpieces.
Eventually, their curiosity got the better of them and they asked Oley why he had not brought a sword. With a mischievous grin, Oley removed his stiff hat, to reveal a super-resilient sword, coiled up inside.
He challenged the other two swordmakers to remove the sword from the hat, but their attempts nearly resulted in the loss of their fingers.
In the end the sword could only be removed by means of a vice. For strength, sharpness and resiliency Oley’s sword was undoubtedly the winner.
Read about previous objects here:
- Why this lost historic house built by infamous Bishop Auckland man was never lived in
- Why miners didn't mourn ‘the man on the hoss’, whose statue stands in Durham
- The heroic wartime deeds of the ‘bloke with the donk’ who 'knew no fear'
Sadly, swords are no longer made in the Shotley Bridge district but in Cutlers Hall Road in adjoining Benfieldside just to the south of Shotley Bridge a remnant of this time is a house called Cutlers Hall which was built by the Oley family of swordmakers. It dates from 1787.
The final fighting blade was turned out in Shotley Bridge in 1840 by Joseph Oley, who then turned his attention to hammers of an auctioneering kind.
He died in 1896, aged 89, and is buried alongside several generations of his family in Ebchester churchyard where his headstone notes that he was “upwards of 50 years an auctioneer” and that “he died in the Lord, The last of Shotley Bridge sword makers”.
Thanks to David Simpson of the England's North East website for his help in compiling this feature. For more on the history and culture of the North East, visit englandsnortheast.co.uk
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