Great Forge Farmhouse

Former farmhouse, dating to the early 16th century or earlier, with alterations from the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The building is constructed with a timber frame, with the ground floor underbuilt in Flemish bond brick of varying dates, and has a peg-tile roof. Brick stacks are present.

The house faces west. The main block may be the remnant of a Wealden-type house, extending three rooms wide. It features a through passage to the left of the centre, with the higher end positioned to the right (south). The hall stack backs onto the passage, and the inner room is jettied. The service room to the left (north) was originally unheated and divided into two spaces. A rear service wing, likely dating to the late 16th or early 17th century, was added to the northeast, and was probably originally a kitchen heated by a smoke bay. A later outshot has been added along the inner (south) side of the rear wing.

The two-storey exterior has an asymmetrical three-window front. The roof is gabletted at the left end and gabled at the right. The right (south) end is jettied to the front and the return, while the left (north) end is jettied to the front only. A 19th-century gabled porch is located on the cross passage to the left of centre. The porch contains a Tudor-arched inner door with moulded cover strips. There are 20th-century three-light casement windows with diamond-leaded panes throughout, except for a circa late 16th/early 17th century seven-light bay window to the ground floor right, which has a transom and chamfered mullions. The left-end stack is likely from the 18th or 19th century. The rear wing has a large projecting stack with a ragstone base and paired brick shafts.

Inside, many late 16th and early 17th century features have survived. The hall features a chamfered axial beam with canted stops, an open fireplace with a stone and brick jamb, and an original lintel. The partition between the hall and the inner room has been removed. The inner room has a similarly finished beam, exposed joists, and a trimmer indicating the former location of a stair in the outer rear corner. The rear wing contains a large kitchen fireplace with brick jambs and a bread oven. A blocked fireplace with a chamfered lintel is found in the chamber above the hall. Some of the first floor wall framing remains, displaying rough jowl posts and large tension braces.

The roof is a clasped purlin roof, with evidence of a smoke bay to the rear wing.