DUTTON BLACKSMITH
Contact John or Dora Dallwitz
Offers around $300,000 will be considered. Sale will include historic contents, various machinery, a bullock cart and historic documents.
The Dutton Blacksmith is on the outskirts of the Barossa Valley in South Australia. This sign was erected by the local community association in 2008. The photo of the blacksmith shop
in its heyday in 1898 can be compared to the same view today.
View from the sign.
All of the original doors and windows are still intact, although boarded up. The Volkwagen 'buggy' and the GI water tank have now been removed.
The tyre stretcher.
Interior of the forge workshop.
All of the tools are still intact. There are two heavy cast-iron swage blocks. At the bottom left is the more common form, but in the centre, with various
shaped holes, is a rare revolving block, which served different functions on each face. The two cast-iron cones are mandrills for forging and shaping
different sized iron rings for tyres, rims, wheels and hubs. These are also very rare and original relics.
The front door of the blacksmith.
The same door is open in the 1898 photo. In the foreground are relics of the blacksmith craft. On the right is the tyre stretcher. This heavy cast-iron
piece of machinery was used to pull the circular metal tyre into the correct size for the wooden rim and wheel structure. The solid iron disk,
under the iron wheel in the forground, is the shrinking plate. The wooden wheel with spokes and rim in place was chained down onto this plate.
Then the iron rim was heated in an outdoor fire, just to the left of the plate, and dropped over the wheel where it rapidly shrank and burned itself against the rim,
pulling the complete wheel structure tightly together. To stop the timber of the wheel catching fire, the whole assembly was then put on to an axle supported by
two wooden posts (one is still standing) beside the shrinking plate. Here the wheel was rotated, with the tyre and rim in a wooden trough of water, to cool it down quickly.
As you can see from the photos, the interior is amazing. It is very rare to have such a time capsule! That is why we bought it in the first place in 1979.
Most of the tools were made by the original blacksmith Carl Schmidt and many have the initials CS stamped onto them. There is a full inventory of the contents,
as they were listed by the previous owner, who bought it in a derelict condition from Fred Shroeter's widow. There are many office documents and a German family bible, etc,
so there is extensive historical information as well. The building is entered on the South Australian Heritage Register..
With approval from the State Heritage Branch, we built a large galvanised iron shed where we camped for weekends, but there is no residence on the two acre property.
We did at one stage however get approval to build a contemporary dwelling attached to the stone outbuilding at the back of the blacksmith shop.
Site plan.
Original office interior which has recently been painted and cleaned. All the improvised furniture and contents are intact. We also have the historic show prize certificates you see here on the wall.
View to the east from the galvanised iron shed (see below), showing the stone butresses supporting the west wall of the vehicle store.
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View of block from galvanised shed.
Galvanised iron shed interior.