Memories of Juniper Green
Anderson the Blacksmith ...
Old residents of Juniper Green still remember the Andersons who were the village blacksmiths for over one hundred years. The Andersons hailed from Tullieardie in Perthshire and moved to Juniper Green in the 1840s. Well into the twentieth century the business was run by John Anderson who lived at Fernielea later called Rivendell, the Victorian villa next to the former St Margaret's Church Hall.
Prior to moving there John Anderson and his family lived with his father-in-law Gilbert Meikle's family at Fernieflat Farm where at one time there were nearly twenty people living under the same roof. Gilbert Meikle had his own en suite blacksmith. John Anderson who was also a pillar of St Andrew's Church died in 1935 and the business in the Smiddy continued at the top of Belmont Avenue for another twenty years or so by his sons Willie and John.
Another brother, Dick, was a tenant farmer at Wester Hailes until the 1950s. Sisters Nellie and Alice lived on at Fernielea until 1959.