Wheelwright's workshop and tyre oven

Wheelwright's workshop and tyre oven

This is a grade II listed building comprising two workshops and a cartshed arranged in a continuous range to the north of the yard, with a tyre oven opposite on the south side.

The northern range consists of a carpenters workshop and blacksmiths workshop of approximately equal size, with a longer cartshed to the east. All are single storey with pantiled roofs. The gable end facing the street displays two closely spaced windows, now boarded over, beneath segmental brick arches. Above these is a sign painted directly onto the brickwork in black lettering on a white background bearing the name of the early 20th-century owner, C Twell, with the word WHEELWRIGHT beneath.

The carpenters workshop to the west has wide double doors. To the east is an iron-framed window with 25 lights under a segmental brick arch, the six central panes opening upwards with a metal catch at the bottom, followed by a modern wooden casement. The central blacksmiths workshop has wide double doors of unequal width flanked by three-part casement windows with top openings to the central frame. The cartshed has three openings, reduced in width by brickwork panels between them, each containing glazed double doors flanked by glass panels.

A circular metal cover over a well sits on the ground immediately to the south of the carpenters workshop. Opposite, on the south side of the yard, stands the tyre oven—a brick structure with a central tapering square-sectioned chimney approximately 5.6 metres high, flanked to north and south by lower sections with pitched cement and brick caps. The front oven section has a metal door with two separately opening upper and lower parts. The front of the oven is broader than the body and chimney stack, with chamfered corners and scorched brickwork.

The roof structures throughout are of sawn timber, featuring widely spaced tie beams and collars supporting purlins. The carpenters workshop has an earth floor. Two metal-framed west windows, visible only from inside, match the south window in design. A work-bench against the west wall sits next to a low, broad stool large enough to support a wheel. Implements including two long double-handed saws hang on the walls.

A narrow plank and batten door connects the carpenters workshop to the central blacksmiths workshop. At the west end is a forge with a partially dismantled hearth and stacked bricks. The hood and stack survive, with a segmental brick arch over the opening and the bellows nozzle below. Above the nozzle is a small domed metal plaque bearing an embossed full heraldic achievement, too indistinct to determine in detail. On the bellows side, a water tank set into the brickwork appears to have cooled air as it passed through the nozzle. A narrow brick pillar projecting from the stack side contains two niches for storing small tools. An overhead file, suspended from a rafter and tie beam, is the main fixture associated with the tyre-making process. On the south wall east of the door is a raised irregular band with uneven surface created by years of paint brushes being cleaned against the wall. Between the carpenters workshop and cartshed, a low rectangular opening in the wall, now infilled, is said to have formed the opening above a sawpit. The blacksmiths shop has a brick floor.

The cartshed is now in domestic use, with a bar at the east end.

The doors to the tyre oven open onto a narrow space capable of holding two tyres, with two niches in the back wall above the floor. The hearth survives with a cast iron grid in place.