Chris Topp – the inspiring life of a true enthusiast

Chris Topp, the inspiration behind the founding of the National Heritage Ironwork Group, passed away on 26th October 2024 at the age of 75. Here, his wife and business partner Bethan Griffiths looks back on a life driven by passion, curiosity and determination.

Chris was born on 3rd April 1949 in Bolton, Lancashire, to Harold and Evelyn Topp (ne Gillybrand), the third of three sons.  As a young man, a common interest in industrial archaeology with three school friends led to many group trips out to see mill and colliery engines. This honed Chris’s interest in historical and mechanical things made of iron which went on to play an important part in the development of his career.

Chris’s interest in wrought iron began at the age of 18 with a summer job in the engineer’s department at Bolton Town Hall, within walking distance of Thomas Walmsley’s Atlas Forge, the last in the world to produce puddled wrought iron. Given the freedom to roam the works, which to him was full of drama with high pressure steam exhausted from the huge engines of the rolling mills, he got into the habit of spending his lunch breaks at the forge. This was Chris’s first exposure to the lure and fascination of hot metal, but especially wrought iron.

He studied Civil Engineering with Mining at the University of Newcastle, and took his first paid job, working for British Waterways, living on a retired working barge, named Frugality.  But, he found the job tedious, so he jacked it in to become a full time (he hoped) restoration engineer.

Dismayed by the closure and dismantling of historic industrial sites he and his old friends started collecting disused equipment induing steam engines and winding winches with the grandiose aim of preserving them. Luckily this coincided with the establishment of several open-air museums such as Beamish, Ironbridge and the Black Country Museum, which enabled them to find homes for the equipment they had salvaged. Soon it became clear that museums not only wanted the equipment but they wanted it refurbished and working. With a can-do attitude and having the experience of working on engines in their teens, Chris and his friends enthusiastically took on this new line of work and formed Dorothea Restorations in 1974, named after Dorothea Quary in North Wales, where they had their initial base.

Living an itinerant lifestyle, they moved to where the work was and ended up in Buxton, where the lease for Westons Forge became available in 1976 when the two brothers running it retired. Taking on the forge to widen the skillset of the group, each of the friends took a turn in the forge under the guidance of the brothers. Chris was a natural and soon decided to run the shop on his own, becoming a full time blacksmith. Although he maintained his connection with Dorothea Restorations, he never went back to contract work with them.

Eventually, the wet Derbyshire weather got the better of him, and in 1979 he set about trying to find a drier location for a house and workshop. Having viewed many properties, his car finally broke down in a small village near Thirsk in North Yorkshire, and he decided that would be the place to settle, taking a house, and what was then the village bus garage to turn into his workplace.

Initially he undertook general blacksmithing work, but in 1982 responded to a call for local craftspeople to get involved in the restoration of Middlethorpe Hall in York.  He ended up making new wrought iron railings and gates, in a sympathetic style, true to the history of the hall.  They attracted attention in the restoration world, and this is when Chris really found his niche.

What set Chris apart was his curiosity. When he got interested in something he always wanted to know more and devoted time to informing himself through research. His interest in wrought iron was not just in the techniques of working it and the products made, he also wanted to know about the material itself. He discovered that unlike steel, wrought iron has a grain, similar to wood, due to the silica slag mixed with the iron making it more corrosion resistant but requiring an understanding of how to work with it.

However, demand for wrought iron began to wane as it was more expensive to produce and not standardised (in engineering terms) like modern steel. The last company in the world to produce puddled wrought iron had ceased production in 1973. Not satisfied with this situation, and understanding the unique value of wrought iron, Chris set about rectifying it. He set up his own rolling mill, and in 1984 his Real Wrought Iron company began selling re-rolled wrought iron to blacksmiths for heritage conservation work.

Today his work is visible in many key national buildings, from Buckingham Palace, St Pauls Cathdral, the Palaces of Westminster, the Natural History Museum, Chatsworth and York Minster.  He described building a replica cannon for the Mary Rose, and testing it in the wilds of Northumberland, as ‘the most fun you could have in a job’!

As passionate as Chris was to learn all he could about the world of ironwork, he was also a committed teacher. He had a stream of ’journeymen’ from all over the world, who would find their way to Carlton Husthwaite, to work and live on site, with the aim of elevating their craft work to a higher level under Chris’s direction.  Some would stay just a few weeks, some a couple of years, and some never left, choosing to settle in the area and work for Chris’s company, Topp & Co.   As the company outgrew the workshop at the bottom of his garden work gradually transferred to new premises a few miles away, with the final blacksmiths relocating from his home workshop to the new one around 2014. He remained involved with the company until his deteriorating health made it too challenging.

Chris inspired people to look at iron differently, to be inspired in the craft of making something new, but with an obsession over the material and quality of the finished work. He met Bethan, his third wife, through a shared passion for conservation and restoration of wrought iron. But even she got fed up with him complaining about unsympathetic conservation or repairs, and challenged him to either stop talking about it or do something about it.  So, together in 2009 they initiated the National Heritage Ironwork Group, bringing together a group of experienced professionals from related disciplines to drive forward heritage standards and conservation principles in the sector. In addition to setting up National Occupational Standards, the organisation is responsible for undertaking and publishing research, providing a place for developing individual and collective knowledge, and championing heritage ironwork.

Chris’s many other interests included owning three barges and his love of his children. Having five children over a period of 34 years he said that he always wanted a house full of children, instilling in them a love of books through his fantastic story telling.

Chris was a pioneer in ironwork conservation and his legacy lives on through the preservation work he carried out, saving many pieces for posterity, and the continuing work of the National Heritage Ironwork Group.

Images: Mary Rose cannon; Castle Howard; Queen’s Gallery Balustrade; Ely Cathedral Reredos; Kensington Palace

Some stories told at Chris’s funeral service:

Mathew Dwyer:

“Nothing in the world of Blacksmithing excited Chris more than a good juicy project to get his teeth into. To my mind the most exciting one was the making of a replica wrought iron cannon that was recovered from the seabed alongside the Mary Rose, Henry VIII’s flagship. Working alongside a camera crew who filmed most of the making of this remarkable piece of blacksmithing will remain with me as long as I can remember the past. Chris was in his element, devising how to make this thing in the first place, arguing the process with the so-called experts and finally getting started on it. The camera crew soon learned to keep up, as once a piece was in place it was there for good, so no time for a second take! We got it built in time and took it to a firing range up at Corbridge to test fire it. What a bang! It was a massive and exhilarating experience that I shared with Chris. But, someone miscalculated the amount of gunpowder to be used and when the dust had settled the explosion had shattered its bearing cart and burst the cannon’s breach. [The cannon is now on display with the Mary Rose in Portsmouth]. A much smaller project done around that time was to make a replica beheading axe for the Tower of London, but they didn’t let us try to see if it worked!!

Chris made his mark within his chosen profession, he and a few other blacksmiths in the early eighties helped to put proper, real blacksmithing back in the public eye again. Through organised forge-ins and engagement with architects, designers and public bodies, the craft of blacksmithing went through a renaissance and was reborn, Chris was right there slap-bang in the thick of it. He was a 20th century Victorian, who loved the effort, style and achievement that went before him. The beautiful and intricate work created by his forebears both excited and informed his style.”

Ted McEvoy:

“[in the 70’s] Hearing of a giant steam shovel near Hull, Chris and I headed for the offices of Blue Circle Cement and persuaded the bemused management to let us have it for fifty quid – all 125 tons of it. Not long afterwards, Blue Circle decided to close their quarry and told us the shovel would have to go. Luckily, Chris … had become friends with Frank Atkinson, Stafford Linsley and the staff of the new Beamish Museum. Frank was happy to acquire our shovel if (big if) we would dismantle, move it and put it back together. Having just graduated and having nothing to do, we accepted his kind offer of £5 a week and set to work, using an old railway wagon as a home.

“… another big steam shovel appeared in Oxfordshire, and Leicester Museum wanted this one. As the acknowledged experts, we were the obvious choice for the work and Leicester went further, giving us a second order to fully restore the shovel. This would take months but where would we live? Enter the steam barge ‘Frugality’, recently bought by Chris. If we sailed it all the way from Leeds to Leicester, we could moor up next to the museum – and we did, providing us with a cold, distinctly frugal and Tilley lamp lit home. Chris slept through the winter on an unheated waterbed – one of his less good ideas.

“We used the dark evenings to type out letters to other museums and authorities. Our timing was perfect. Industrial museums were springing up everywhere. All were looking for exhibits and restoration work and all had money. We lined up work in Nottingham and turned ourselves into a limited company – Dorothea Restoration Engineers Ltd, named after the Dorothea quarry in N Wales. More work came in, Ironbridge took us under their wing to hire us out to other museums and we took on our first employees.”