The Rendell Forge
Built around 1920, the Rendell Forge is a small, one-room, one story wooden blacksmith shop located in
Heart’s Content, Trinity Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador. The Rendell family had a
long history of blacksmithing in the community.
Location
296 Main Road, Heart’s Content, NL (47.8779, -53.3665)
Hours
Open from June 21st, 2024 to September 21st, 2024 on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 11AM to 2PM.
If you would like to see the Forge outside of the weekly hours please contact Darlene King @ 709 583 2739
The Rendell Forge was designated a municipal heritage site by the Town of Heart’s Content due to its aesthetic and historic value.
Rendell Forge has aesthetic value as an example of a 20th century, outport, family-run forge. Built around 1920, the building is uncomplicated in design and exterior detailing, reflecting its utilitarian use. This wooden structure with a shed roof is one story in height, closely resembling many other traditional outbuildings in the region. It is clad in wooden shingles, has three wooden windows with plain trim, and features a double hung door. The interior consists of one open room with some built-in benches and the forge itself.
The Rendell Forge has historic value as a physical reminder of five generations of blacksmithing by the Rendell family in Heart’s Content. It is believed that the first Rendell to come to the island of Newfoundland was Charles Rendell of Yeovil in South Summerset, England. Charles came to Trinity in 1780 at the invitation of merchant Robert Slade. In 1793 Rendell left Slade’s service and moved to Heart’s Content, where he established a forge. Charles’ son Charles (birthplace unknown) and wife Lydia Way of Trinity also moved to Heart’s Content in the early 1800s. The younger Charles Rendell crafted ironwork for Rowe’s shipyard and became Heart’s Content’s first police constable sometime in the 1830s. Charles and Lydia had several children – including Charles (the third) in 1832, Giles in 1837, James, John Thomas, and George – who all practiced blacksmithing at some point. Giles and his wife Leah Rowe also had several children who continued the blacksmithing trade.
Giles and Leah’s son Bela is recorded as a blacksmith in the 1921 census (around the time the present forge was constructed). Bela married Susannah Hopkins, known locally as Aunt Suze – and as a maker of beer. Bela operated this forge together with his son Jim, until business fell off during the depression years and Jim moved his family to Hant’s Harbour. In 1941, at the age of 60, Bela went to Scotland as a blacksmith with the Newfoundland Overseas Forestry Unit. He returned to Heart’s Content at the end of the war and continued with the forge in the 1950s, turning out grapnels, horseshoes and custom ironwork. Following Bela’s death, his son Ray (born 1924) worked the forge on a part-time basis. Ray was the last of the Rendells to work in the forge, using the building until circa 1990. Ray’s widow Myrtle and family passed the building and the land on which it sits over to the Mizzen Heritage Society on July 11, 2006.
Source: Town of Heart’s Content Council Meeting, Motion #71-21, July 22, 2021.