Hidden Scotland
Sign in
The blacksmith works the big iron coin press at the Gretna Green Forge while a visitor in a striped jumper looks on.
Dumfries and Galloway

The Forge Experience at Gretna Green

Half an hour with Gretna Green's resident blacksmith, pressing your own commemorative coin from hot metal to take home.

Visit websiteCall
Welcome

The quickest way to try your hand at the forge.

At the new working Forge, Joe, the resident blacksmith, tells you the story of the village's famous blacksmiths and the skills that made them, then you choose from a selection of exclusive designs and press it into heated metal to strike a coin of your own. It's a hands-on half hour, and you leave with a little piece of Gretna Green 's history that you made yourself.

Before you go
How long
Half an hour
Cost
£35 a person, booked online with a small fee
Where
The working Forge, opened in September 2026.
You take home
The coin you strike, from a choice of exclusive designs.
Book
Online at gretnagreen.com, or call 01461 336 001.
Getting here
Free parking on site, just off the M74 (locked 6pm to 8am); Gretna Green station is a short walk.
Dogs
Welcome across most of the site, though not in the restaurants or the Larder shop.

Did you know

The blacksmith at work at the anvil in the new Gretna Green Forge, its hooded hearth behind him.
Did you know

In September 2026 Gretna Green got a working blacksmith again, for the first time in more than 150 years.

The village in Dumfries and Galloway is famous for weddings over a blacksmith's anvil, but the fires went out long ago. On 2 September 2026 a new forge opened beside the Famous Blacksmiths Shop, with Joe Shevelan as resident blacksmith, and the ring of hammer on steel is back. Visitors can watch him at work, or have a go themselves: strike a coin from hot metal in half an hour, forge a fireside poker at their own anvil, or make a pair of entwined iron hearts as a couple.

A couple hold the tartan ribbon over the marriage anvil in the low-beamed old smithy.
Did you know

Gretna Green's first famous anvil priest, Joseph Paisley, was a former tobacconist and smuggler, not a blacksmith.

Paisley began marrying runaway couples at Gretna Green, just over the border in Dumfries and Galloway, in the 1700s, and he became a legend. Accounts describe a huge man of at least 25 stone who liked a drink, and the story goes that he once married two couples to the wrong partners and told them to sort it out between themselves. None of the anvil priests was ever ordained, and plenty of them never shod a horse. You can still stand at the old marriage anvil in the Famous Blacksmiths Shop.

The guide stands beside the anvil under a sign reading The anvil that forged hearts.
Did you know

True or false: Richard Rennison, the last anvil priest at Gretna Green, was a blacksmith.

False. Rennison married 5,147 couples at Gretna Green in Dumfries and Galloway between 1926 and 1940, more than anyone else, but he was a saddler, ironmonger and Methodist preacher from Northumberland. The anvil priests took their name from the smithy, not the trade. Marriage by simple declaration, which had drawn runaway couples north since 1754, ended in July 1940, though couples still marry over the anvil today in proper ceremonies. The guided tour of the Famous Blacksmiths Shop tells the whole story.

01 / 04
Where it is

At Gretna Green, just over the border on the A74(M): the working Forge, opened in September 2026.

Close by
  1. Gretna GreenGretna GreenThe first village over the border, where runaway couples married at an anvil.Under a mile 1 min by road
  2. Gretna Green Guided TourGretna Green Guided TourUnder a mile as the crow flies
  3. Handfasting at Gretna GreenHandfasting at Gretna GreenUnder a mile as the crow flies
  4. The First Sip of Scotland, Gretna GreenThe First Sip of Scotland, Gretna GreenUnder a mile as the crow flies
  5. The First Taste of Scotland, Gretna GreenThe First Taste of Scotland, Gretna GreenUnder a mile as the crow flies
  6. The Couples Experience at the Gretna Green ForgeThe Couples Experience at the Gretna Green ForgeA private 90 minutes at Gretna Green's working forge, where a couple make an entwined-hearts keepsake alongside the resident blacksmith.Under a mile as the crow flies
Directions
Three people in leather aprons and gloves work hot steel at their own anvils in the Gretna Green Forge.ActivityThe Smithy Experience at the Gretna Green ForgeA step away
White cottage buildings with sign for Gretna Green Famous Blacksmiths ShopAttractionsGretna Green Old Blacksmiths ShopA step away
Wooden sculpture of two clasped hands rising against a pale skyAttractionsThe Big Dance (the Clasping Hands), Gretna GreenA step away
White building with sign for The Devil's Porridge Museum behind a stone wallAttractionsThe Devil's Porridge Museum4.8 miles
Wooden washbacks line a distillery hall with exposed brick walls and timber roof beamsAttractionsAnnandale Distillery8.9 miles
Grassy shoreline overlooking mudflats and distant hills across the firthAttractionsThe Annan Shore Walk8.9 miles
Spending A Day In Scotland’s Debatable LandsAttractionsGilnockie Tower9.7 miles
Cottage room with black cast-iron range, tartan mantel and spinning wheel beside the windowAttractionsThomas Carlyle's Birthplace9.9 miles
The Daily for 18 October, from Scotland with love. Golden-hour light catches a shadowed mountain above a loch, rust-coloured moorland in the foreground

The Daily

Arrives at 5am every day.

A free morning email to see what’s on this week, catch up on what’s happening in Scotland and find somewhere new to go.

Hidden Scotland, the magazine

Scotland, in print.

We want to show you the best that Scotland has to offer. The makers and the creatives, the enduring experiences, the evocative tales, the concealed corners. The roads less travelled that take you to places that matter. The adventures that gather you up and sweep you away. The blend of the wild and the artistic that makes Scotland what it is. We’d love for you to join us.

Get Issue 13Read it here
Find out more

For further reading, before you go.