Forrold Cottage

Forrold Cottage is a house dating from the early to mid 16th century, built in two stages. It features a two-cell lobby-entrance plan and stands two storeys tall. The structure is timber-framed and plastered, topped with a hipped thatched roof. An axial 17th-century chimney made of narrow gault bricks with a sawtooth shaft is present. The windows are primarily 19th and 20th-century casements, some of which have leaded lights. The entrance door is boarded and located in a 20th-century lean-to extension with a pantiled roof.

This house is complete and unusual, showcasing a two-bay hall with a queen-post roof. The open truss includes square queen posts on a cambered tie-beam, with jowled post-heads supported by archbraces leading to a collar and in-pitch purlins. The front wall features a middle rail and a blocked four-centred arched entrance doorway into the lobby, while the rear wall lacks both a middle rail and a doorway. There are large back-to-back 16th-century fireplaces in the hall and parlour. The parlour cell was rebuilt in the mid to late 16th century and has a coupled-rafter roof. Both cells exhibit massive framing, with unchamfered floor joists; in the hall, the deeply chamfered binding joist has pyramid stops. The studwork is arch-braced, and there are diamond-mullioned windows, one of which was glazed in the 20th century. Forrold Cottage is an early example of a two-cell lobby entrance house, with the original second cell likely serving as a small unheated service room.