Blacksmithies are by nature the noisiest, smelliest and whatnot places that one would not expect to contain animal stalls. Custom typically comes in the from door, is worked on outside the building and departs the same way. I'd have to say it's the "never heard of" option. I would hate to use this as a template, but the western movies with a blacksmithy had a back area where the forge was located and a stump with the anvil under a leant and then a street staging area for animal queues, not that there should have been that many.

It is also probable that the animals were habituated to blacksmithies and their incessant racket. I saw a blacksmithy in operation in Cumbria, NW, England that had the blacksmith, his forge, a fore bay and the most unimaginable racket from his own verbiage, the Cumbrian clogs he wore (basically wooden clogs shod with iron U-shaped horseshoe shaped bottoms and this guy could be heard at 100 yards. Towing animals become accustomed to all sorts of loud noises that would spook standard rural draft animals.

Is there evidence for the "holding stall" or is that something that was interpreted from a posthole pattern? Blacksmithies have a wide range of patterns and the "flow pattern" of the doorway as it relates to the work area would be the template for demonstrating a stall.

Lyle Browning, RPA

On Sep 30, 2014, at 3:49 PM, David W Babson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I have been asked to advise on a potential modification to a reconstructed building. As built c. 1995, this building depicts a mid-late 19th-century blacksmith shop as part of a boatyard on the Erie Canal, and it contains a working coal-fired forge for living history demonstrations. As built, a corner of the forge area includes a single-animal stall, interpreted as being a holding stall for canal horses or mules, waiting to be shoed. The stall is approximately 15 feet (4.5m) from the forge. With possible renovations coming up, the museum sponsoring this building is wondering if stalls within an active blacksmith shop were common, unusual, or never heard of. Opinions range from the stall in the forge room being a practical idea, to it being never done, because the horses and mules would have been agitated by the fire and noise of the forge, and would therefore have been hard to manage safely. The museum is trying to decide to keep the stall as is, or remove it to improve the historical character of the reconstructed building.
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> Opinions and links to published references concerning this topic are welcome.
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> Thanks,
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> D. Babson.