Forge Cottage

Forge Cottage is a 17th-century cottage that has been altered and extended in the 19th and 20th centuries. It features a timber frame with a 20th-century facade made of yellow stock bricks in Flemish bond, while other areas are plastered. The roof is thatched. The building consists of three bays aligned northeast to southwest, with the original chimney stack located in the middle bay, which serves as a lobby entrance. There is a 19th-century brick and thatch extension at the rear of the southwest bay, creating an L-shaped plan, which includes a lean-to cellar in the rear angle, also from the 19th century. External chimney stacks are located at the northwest and northeast corners, dating from the 19th or 20th century. The cottage is single storey with attics and features a plain boarded door in a thatched gabled porch, two 20th-century casement windows, and two gabled dormers with 20th-century casement windows. Inside, there is an original large hearth made of 23-centimeter red brickwork facing southeast, which has been reduced for a coal fire and now forms cupboards on each side, although it has been later blocked. An inserted hearth is present in the northeast upper room, and there is a 19th-century cast-iron grate in a 20th-century chimney in the northeast ground floor room. The cottage has chamfered beams with lamb's tongue stops over the northeast ground floor room, and the soffits of the joists are plastered. The roof is ceiled but is likely of clasped purlin construction.