ONE of Britain’s top artistic blacksmiths has been sworn-in as a Gentleman Freeman of Durham City after creating a memorial to commemorate the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II.
Working in his forge in Teesdale, 70-year-old Brian Russell has taken months to design and complete the project. In the early spring, he will see his towering steel Platinum Beacon fired-up for a ceremony on its permanent site on Jubilee Walk, adjacent to County Hall, in Durham.
Standing 19ft high and weighing half a ton, the structure has been commissioned and funded by the city’s freemen, with the county council meeting the cost of its installation.
Mr Russell, who was born in Framwellgate Moor, went to Durham Johnston School, where he took a keen interest in art and design.
After getting a fine arts degree at Sunderland College of Art, he set his sights on an apprenticeship as a blacksmith, but at the time few forges were operating in the area and none were looking for an apprentice.
However, his determination to learn as much as he could about metalwork led him to attend evening classes.
Finally, in 1974, the small industries council asked him if he would be interested in taking over the 200-year-old forge at Little Newsham, near Staindrop.
It was there, over the following decades, Mr Russell developed the talent which has put him at the forefront of his craft, demonstrating his skills at exhibitions across Europe, the US and Canada.
In 1995 he was one of the few blacksmiths in the North East to be awarded a silver medal for the excellence of his work by London’s Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths and is currently the only working blacksmith in the country who holds their gold medal. Mr Russell and his wife Hilda have two children – Ivan, who has worked in the forge alongside his dad for the past 20 years, and daughter Amy, a nurse.
Mr Russell said: “It is the first time I have been asked to produce a beacon and it’s been a project I have taken great deal of satisfaction from. I still get a thrill when I ride around the county and am reminded of work I carried out 40 years ago, particularly on churches, which I have often forgotten about.”
John Booth, chairman of the Wardens of Durham Freemen’s eight surviving craft guilds, said the project had been originally inspired by the freemen to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
“We hope the beacon will be seen by the public as a fitting and lasting tribute to Her Majesty’s reign, the legacy of the freemen, the outstanding skill of a local man and a reflection of the quality and value of many thousands of the city’s craftsmen who have gone before across the centuries,” he added.
