The Old Smithy (a.k.a. Forge Stores) and Forge Garage Cottage

The Old Smithy (a.k.a. Forge Stores) and Forge Garage Cottage

A smithy converted to garage and shop, built in 1891 with a cottage extension added in 1911 by John M Sturgess, land agent to the Penshurst estate.

The building employs a mixture of materials reflecting local vernacular tradition. The right-hand wing is brick with oak framing and roughcast infill on a base of dressed Wealden sandstone. The central and left-hand blocks are faced in sandstone to the front and brick to the rear. The cottage features a brick lower storey with timber framing, roughcast, shingles and tile-hanging above. All roofs are clay tile.

The smithy building is C-shaped in plan, comprising a recessed central workshop range with a square partly detached block to the left and a projecting cross-wing to the right, with a two-storey cottage extension to the rear of the cross-wing.

The workshop range features a central dormer with a shingled gable bearing moulded barge-boards and a carved pendant at the apex. This originally formed the upper part of a tall five-light bay window, but the lower portion was removed when sliding timber doors were installed in 1965. Low flanking mullioned windows survive on either side. The left-hand block has a six-light window with stone mullions and a carved datestone bearing the initials PS (for Philip Sidney, second Baron de l'Isle) and the date 1891. A pyramidal roof is surmounted by an elaborate wrought-iron finial crowned with horseshoe nails. The cross-wing to the right features a tall horseshoe-shaped timber archway flanked by framing panels with heavy curved braces. Above hangs a painted timber sign reading "J F Skinner, smith and coach builder, agent for agricultural implements". A timber screen within the arch contains part-glazed double doors and a leaded overlight, with small recesses on either side forming seats or shelves. The two-storey cottage extension to the rear has tall corbelled chimney stacks and two projecting half-timbered gables, one jettied and partly shingled, the other bearing a heraldic panel and the date 1911.

The workshop block interior has lost its two large square forge structures, removed in the 1960s, and is now an open concrete-floored space with a simple king-post roof and boarded cladding to the end gables. A wood-block floor survives in the right-hand wing. The cottage interior is understood to comprise a living room, kitchen and bathroom on the ground floor, with three bedrooms above.

The main building was constructed in 1891 by John M Sturgess, replacing an earlier smithy which stood on the opposite side of the road next to the primary school. Unusually large for a village smithy, the new building may have been intended to produce metalwork for the estate as a whole. Its design is based on half-timbered traditional architecture of the Weald and recalls the work of vernacular revival architect George Devey (1820-86), who undertook much of his most important work on and around the Penshurst estate in the third quarter of the 19th century, though there is no evidence that any specific design of Devey's was used. A cottage was added to the rear of the smithy in 1911. Around 1965 the smithy was converted into a garage, with the central workshop block altered to permit motor vehicle access; this resulted in the demolition of the original forges and chimney and the insertion of two large sliding doors on the entrance front.