Smithy Cottage

Smithy Cottage is a house that likely dates back to the early 15th century, with remodels in the 16th and 17th centuries. It features a cruck frame and is constructed of coursed limestone rubble. The left bay, which was formerly a smithy outbuilding and dates to the early 19th century, is weatherboarded. The roof is a gabled design from the 20th century, with shingles and a hip to the left, and there are stone stacks at the ends.

The house has a three-bay hall that has been remodeled and now has a three-unit plan, with the former smithy outbuilding on the left. It is one storey with an attic and has a three-window range. There are hood moulds over 17th-century three- and four-light chamfered stone-mullioned windows, as well as over a 20th-century three-light casement window to the left. A gabled roof dormer was added in the 20th century. The front of the left bay features a timber lintel above double doors, with a three-light leaded casement window above a hood mould over an early 17th-century three-light chamfered stone-mullioned window at the rear. A rear extension was added in 1953.

Inside, the cottage has full cruck trusses with collars, through purlins, and a saddled apex. The left bay, which was open to the roof and used as a smithy, contains an open fireplace with a bressumer. There are stop-chamfered beams from inserted floors. Smithy Cottage may have originally been a barn that was converted early on into a hall-house. The central bay may have been floored in the 16th century, and there is a possibility that a former smoke-hood dates from this period. The right-hand bay was floored in the 17th century when the stacks were added and the walls were remodeled.