Monks Smithy House

Monks' Smithy House

A farmhouse with attached farmbuildings, also known as Kirkstead Abbey Grange, situated on the south-west side of Upper Wortley Road at Thorpe Common. The building was formerly listed under the name Abbey Grange. It was reconstructed and renamed in 1900 for the Earl of Effingham, though the core structure is probably of 16th or 17th-century date and reuses a variety of medieval material.

The building is constructed of gritstone and sandstone rubble walling with a stone slate roof. It forms an elongated two-storey range, with the house occupying the left side and farmbuildings to the right, the latter having two lower additions at the right-hand end.

The house section features large quoins and is lit by 20th-century casement windows. A central doorway is distinguished by a chamfered round arch in 12th-century style. To the left of this door are two windows on each floor, three of them set within chamfered, quoined surrounds—the ground-floor window nearest the door may date to the 15th century. A water spout at eaves is positioned between these windows. To the right of the door are five windows, all products of the 1900 alterations, those at the far right occupying the position of a former lateral stack. Another round-arched doorway at the centre of the range is flanked by small trefoil-headed lights, the left one being resited in 1900. Above this door is a plaque bearing an Effingham crown and the inscription "KIRKSTEAD / ABBEY GRANGE / RESTORED 1900".

The farmbuildings to the right are now accessed by external stone steps. Various openings include an early doorway, now a window, with chamfered, quoined surround, and beside it a small round-headed window possibly of 12th-century date. A loft door has to its right a boarded hatch with an early peg-jointed frame, and to its left a small wood-framed opening now housing a casement but retaining mortices for wood mullions.

The main range has a wallstone end stack to the left and a ridge stack to the right of the main door. Brick end stacks, truncated, stand to the right and at the junction of the two additions. The rear elevation features two small trefoil-headed lights, one of them reset without jambs, and four small round-arched openings unlikely to be medieval. A chamfered rectangular slit, possibly removed from the position of the present loft steps in 1900, is also visible.

The interior reveals interesting structural details. The floor structure of the house was partly exposed at the time of resurvey, showing chamfered beams and heavy-scantling joists in the central room. The first-floor room to the left contains a moulded tie-beam and a moulded ashlar fireplace possibly resited from an original lateral stack. The most significant feature is an impressive nine-bay, king-post roof structure with an additional truss at the junction of bays six and seven. Three curved braces spring to the ridge above the house, and evidence of truss infill survives, with some members chamfered. One principal-rafter truss has a soffit-morticed tie-beam for wallposts and braces and a saddle apex. The three end bays of the hay loft have a simpler king-post roof of separate construction, though one truss features a moulded, cambered tie-beam with post and brace mortices at one end only and a broach-stopped chamfer to the king-post—possibly an open truss re-used from a framed cross-wing.

The building has long been regarded as having been erected by Cistercian monks of Kirkstead Abbey in Lincolnshire following a charter of 1161–1166 allowing them to build houses and four iron-working forges in this locality. However, it is now interpreted as having a more complicated history, though it may well retain elements of the original structure as well as late- and post-medieval material. The building was undergoing renovation and subdivision at the time of resurvey.