Britain’s youngest blacksmiths, Ollie and Harvey, have created their biggest project yet! Dixie the Dragon, which is on tour visiting venues across Wrexham and surrounding areas before heading to Stok Cae Ras, its forever home, on 27thApril. The duo built the dragon as a fundraiser for Nightingale House Hospice, and it will be featured in season 3 of the Welcome to Wrexham TV series.
At the start of the year, Ollie and Harvey got together with their family to create a plan for a big fundraiser to start the year. That’s where the ambitious idea to create a life-size Welsh dragon was borne. Scale by scale, the blacksmith duo meticulously crafted the life-size Welsh Dragon named after Wrexham FC Legend Dixie McNeil, which consists of over 2000 hand-cut scales and can breathe fire! It took them three months, working 3 days a week after school alongside their Grandad – Tony, to craft the sculpture.
Ollie and Harvey said, “This is one of the hardest and biggest projects we’ve done, and we wanted to use the project to help raise money for charity – we support a lot of charities, but Nightingale House Hospice is close to our hearts. It’s definitely one of the hardest things we have built, particularly adding the scales to the body of the dragon.”
Since they started to learn the blacksmith trade in lockdown to become the 7th generation blacksmiths in their family, Ollie and Harvey have supported Nightingale House Hospice with various fundraisers as the charity is close to their family’s hearts.
Delyth Underwood, Community Fundraiser, said, “Ollie and Harvey have supported Nightingale House for a number of years now and have donated metal sculptures for us to raffle off and held Fun Days on our behalf. This is by far the biggest sculpture to date! We are delighted that they remembered everyone at the hospice, especially when Dixie the Dragon will take pride of place at the Stok Cae Ras, home of Wrexham AFC.”
Dixie the Dragon started touring the city of Wrexham, beginning at The Turf on 16th March. The dragon will be visiting various venues including Glyndwr University, Bellis Brothers, schools, and Nightingale House Hospice. On 27th April, the dragon will head to Stok Cae Ras to mark the end of the tour and will be donated to Wrexham Football Club.
