The Smithy, Hoylake Street, Outram

The Hoylake Street Blacksmith's Shop at Outram, now a private residential home, retains one of three original forges with all the necessary equipment, bellows and wheelwright tools. 

When the Otago goldrush began in June 1861, Diggers crossed the Taieri River above the old Ferry Township, heading to Gabriel's Gully, near Lawrence. They often stayed overnight at the Ferry Twoenship, where there was a growing settlement with a baker, bootmaker, butcher, police station, wheelwright, blacksmith and two hotels. 

The Smithy in Hoylake Street dates back to the 1880's and was still in operation 100 years later. With roads unfit for motorised vehicles for many decades, cartage and horse-drawn transportation kept the smithy busy, and by the 1900s there were two blacksmiths in Outram. Rutherford's was on Holyhead Street (now a petrol garage), while the Hoylake Street Smithy was on the corner of Hoylake and Skerries Streets, opposite the apothecary.  The original owner of the Hoylake Street Blacksmiths was John Anderson, one of the area's earliest settlers, but by the early 1900's the Blacksmith's shop had passed to 'Black Sandy', - Sandy Alexander - and was then taken over by Mr Alex 'Sandy' Walker, who had immigrated from Scotland.

By 1877, the railway from Mosgiel to Outram was completed, and by 1914 horse-drawn wagons were gradually giving way to trucks and lorries, and there was less pressing need for blacksmiths. 

In 2011, the Blacksmith's shop was purchased by an Outram-based architect, who designed a modern home around the old Smithy, keeping many of the old features intact in the historic part of the property.