The Old Forge

The Old Forge is a cottage that dates back to the 14th or 15th century and was remodeled in the 17th century with later additions and alterations. It is constructed from roughly coursed limestone and marlstone rubble, topped with a straw thatch roof that is hipped to the left. The left end of the building is the earliest part, which was originally on a different axis and gable-fronted; this alignment was altered and extended by two sections to the right in the 17th century.

The cottage is one storey and has an attic. The central part features two eyebrow eaves dormers with 20th-century leaded casements. To the right, there is a half-glazed door and a small leaded casement with a concrete lintel. The earliest part on the left has a 20th-century half-glazed door with a small window to its right. The right section includes a three-light leaded casement window from the late 18th or early 19th century with a wooden lintel. A rendered ridge stack is located at the junction between the central and right parts. The rear of the building has two leaded casements to the left, a 19th-century casement to the right of the stack, and a narrow leaded casement at the far right. There is an infilled opening below the stack, likely associated with a former bread oven.

Inside, the right ground-floor room features an inglenook fireplace with a chamfered wooden lintel and an arch leading to the bread oven. There are three chamfered cross beams, with the center beam having stepped ogee stops and blocks for wall posts below at each end, including one above the lintel and a chamfered wall-plate on the right end. A chamfered cross beam is also present in the room to the left of the stack. The attic contains principal rafters with a single butt-purlin and visible thatching spars in the right room. The truss of the original building can be seen in the roof space to the left, with curved principal rafters resting on a later tie beam, which may be a truncated cruck truss, and slots for a former collar, lower butt-purlin, and upper trenched purlin. Thatching spars and thatch from a secondary roof are visible, but any evidence of original smoke blackening has been removed due to recent cleaning and re-thatching.