What is virtually indestructible, yet refined as Chantilly lace? Hint: you don't have to warn your kids (or your guests) to be careful when they're around it, and it would do you proud in your living room or even outside on your patio. It's been around for centuries, yet remains forever new.

Give up? The answer is wrought iron, the world's most practical work of art. In fact, not only were early blacksmiths esteemed as artists, but also this transformation of seemingly intransigent iron was at one time considered sorcery. And well it may be, since wrought iron borders on the immortal: examples of French grille work of the 1100's and 1200's endure to this day.

Even Louis XVI, husband of the infamous Marie Antoinette of "let them eat cake" fame, tried his hand at this magical art. Examples of his work have survived far longer than the ill-fated monarch, and still decorate the front gates of his Chateau de Versailles.

Another Frenchman decidedly more adept than Louis was Jean Tijou, whose incredible twelve-paneled screen was created for William III and Mary II around 1694, shortly after they acceded to the throne of England. Originally, it graced their gardens at Hampton Court, where, after a move or two and some perhaps unfortunate paint, it can still be seen today.

The amazing Gates at Chirk Castle were also moved around a bit, but only on the castle grounds, where they have stood since around 1719. The work of brothers John and Robert Davies of Croesfoel Forge, the gates were commissioned by the Myddelton family, whose descendants are still in residence at the castle. The scope and intricacy of this powerful design is absolutely mind-boggling, and includes the family coat-of-arms with the chilling "bloody hand" of Myddelton legend.

Although Robert Bakewell also created glorious wrought iron gates, such as the ones outside Derby Cathedral, perhaps the greatest example of the sheer grace of wrought iron is "The Birdcage," a delicate arbor he designed in 1706 for Thomas Coke's gardens at Melbourne Hall. The arbor's seeming fragility is belied by the fact that it remains standing to this day in Coke's Gardens in South Derbyshire.

Clearly, wrought iron can be a work of art as surely as any fine sculpture. And yet, it remains an art form accessible even to those of us who have never owned a moat, much less a castle. Delicacy bonded with strength, this yin and yang incarnate is for monarchs and the masses alike. Wrought iron furniture was commonplace in ancient Rome, the intricate railings of Westminster Abbey date from the thirteenth century, and the ornate Baroque style, imported from France, became positively de rigueur in British country houses of the early eighteenth century.

Sadly, with the coming of the Industrial Age and mass production, finely-crafted wrought iron, shaped by hammer and anvil, gave way to cast iron pieces made from mild steel, which not only lacks the delicacy of wrought iron, but also often showcases this comparative crudity with obvious welding at the joints and early rusting due to the greater tendency to corrosion.