Forge Cottage Including Attached Railings And Gate

Forge Cottage, dating to around 1600, has been altered throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, and extended in the 20th century. The house is timber framed and has a plaster exterior, with a roof of handmade red plain tiles. It originally comprised three bays facing southeast, with 19th-century external stacks on the right end and behind the middle bay. A 20th-century wing extends to the rear of the left bay, with a lower storey of painted brick and an upper storey of weatherboard. A truncated stack is enclosed by a single-storey lean-to extension of breeze blocks, with a corrugated asbestos roof. Other 20th-century single-storey lean-to extensions to the rear of the other bays are partly painted brick and partly shingled, both with felt roofs. The two upper floors each contain two three-light casement windows. The lower left window is a complete early 18th or 19th-century original, featuring moulded mullions and a central wrought iron casement. The other windows retain early 18th or 19th-century casements, but have been rebuilt in the 20th century. There is an early 18th or 19th-century plain boarded front door. The exterior is asymmetrical. Early 19th-century wrought and cast iron railings and a gate form the boundary with the street, returning to the house at both ends. There are six cast iron stanchions with urn terminals; plain spikes on the railings; they are mounted on a rendered dwarf wall, and the central gate has saltire bracing at the bottom. The interior features chamfered longitudinal beams, joggled between bays, and plain joists of vertical section, some of which have been replaced. There is a hardwood floor in the left bay. Other features include an edge-halved and bridled scarf in the front wallplate, unjowled posts, a quarter-turn stair to the right of the front door, and walls that were raised approximately one metre in the 17th or 18th century. Internal tiebeams were severed for doors but bareface-dovetailed to heavy door frames. There are 20th-century grates. Also present are one 18th or 19th-century battened door to the rear of the ground floor and two in the upper storey.