The Old Forge

The Old Forge is a cottage that dates from the mid to late 17th century and was enlarged in the late 19th to early 20th century. It underwent modernization with a service extension around 1980. The structure is made of plastered cob on stone rubble footings, featuring a cob stack topped with 19th and 20th-century brick, and has a thatched roof. The cottage is designed in an L-shape, facing southeast. The main block includes a parlour on the left (southwest) with a rear lateral stack, and an entrance hall on the right. Behind the entrance hall is a kitchen/living room with a gable-end stack, which serves as the historic core of the house. Originally, the cottage had a two-room plan, with the larger heated room remaining as the kitchen/living room. The unheated room was extended forward during the late 19th to early 20th-century rebuild and converted into the entrance hall. The cottage has two storeys, with a single-storey service extension added to the rear around 1980, which now contains the current kitchen.

The exterior features an irregular two-window front with late 19th to early 20th-century casements that have glazing bars and flat eyebrows over the first-floor windows. The front doorway is located near the right end and includes a 20th-century door behind a contemporary thatch-roofed porch. The roof is half-hipped at each end, while the rear block roof, which is part of the 17th-century section, is gable-ended and unusually steeply pitched. One window in the rear block, located on the first floor to the right on the southwest side, has flat-faced mullions and may be original.

Inside, the 17th-century features are primarily found in the rear block. This room has a deeply chamfered crossbeam and a large plastered fireplace with a small chamfer on the oak lintel, which includes a brick oven. The partition between the two original rooms remains largely intact, featuring a full-height closed truss of large scantling close-studded oak framing. The sides of the posts are drilled with a series of holes to accommodate individual lathes, providing a ladder backing for the cob infill. The rear block has a single bay roof.