Blacksmiths Derek & Steve Lloyd
Father & Son Blacksmiths
In 1941, Aged 5, Derek Lloyd was evacuated from Birmingham to live opposite a blacksmiths shop in Worcestershire. When he was old enough he would spend his holidays working at the forge and when he left school he did a four year apprenticeship there with Mr Stanner the Blacksmith. He attended the newly opened Hereford Technical College which had a blacksmiths shop in Conningsby Street. When he was 20 he was called up to do National Service, and served as a blacksmith in the army in Kenya. When he left the army he took a business in Kinnersley in Worcestershire before moving to Yorkshire where he had a larger blacksmithing shop. He came back to Fromes Hill on the Herefordshire/Worcestershire border in the early 1960’s and has been there ever since.
Derek started teaching part time in 1980 at Hereford College of Further Education (now the National School of Blacksmithing), the college he had done his apprenticeship in. He helped to develop the full time blacksmithing course and lectured for 15 years as the Master Farrier.
A farrier all his life until aged 80, Derek has shoed thousands of horses including Grand National and Gold Cup winners. In 1995 he became the Champion Blacksmith and was awarded a Silver Medal for his work by ‘The Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths’. He had the Freedom of the City of London.
Steve Lloyd became an apprentice to his father, Derek, when he was 16. Steve gained his ‘City and Guilds in Blacksmithing’ in 1977, a great all round course which at that time encompassed Farriery, Blacksmithing, Welding, technical drawing, Agricultural Engineering & Farriery (AEF) and Business Studies.
Under the guidance of his father in their Herefordshire family business, Steve honed his skill for many years before setting up his own Forge. For 8 years he was a Racecourse Farrier for 6 racecourses. He was out 104 days a year, once shoeing 13 horses in a single day at Ludlow Racecourse.
After spending a year in Cornwall as a Farrier, Steve returned to Herefordshire in 1987 to again relight the Herefordshire forge. It was over the next few years that he got involved in teaching part time at the Hereford Blacksmith College. Then in 2002 he was appointed ‘Chief Farriery Instructor’ by the Irish Government in a new college in County Kildare which he opened and ran for two years.
Back in Herefordshire, from 2007 for 3 years, Steve became a full time senior lecturer at The National School of Blacksmithing. Alongside this until 2013 he ran clinics for Mustad, the world’s largest horse shoe manufacturer, throughout the UK and Ireland.
Steve returned again to his Herefordshire Forge in 2015 after living in France for two years. He now undertakes bespoke commissions as well as being One of the Woodee Blacksmiths with his dad. 
