Chicks

Chicks is a farmhouse and forge, likely dating from the late 15th century. It is constructed with painted render over stone rubble and cob walls, with a thatched roof featuring a gable to the right and a hipped end swept lower over the former forge. Granite ashlar stacks are present, one axial with weatherings and rendered external, and another lateral with a tall rendered brick shaft. The original plan comprised three rooms, a cross passage, and a forge.

The building is two storeys high, the upper floor largely situated within the roof space. The south-east front features five windows on the ground floor. A wide entrance leads to the forge on the left, with a lateral stack between windows one and two, and a doorway between windows two and three. An old planked door is set within a thatched open porch supported by two reused beams. Most windows are 20th-century timber casements with two lights under timber lintels; however, on the right of the entrance is a 19th-century 2-light timber casement with eight panes to each light. A dormer window on the first floor sits above and slightly to the left of window four. The ground slopes slightly to the left.

The rear elevation has six windows of varying sizes and two small windows tucked under the eaves. Several exposed rafter ends and an exposed jointed cruck post are visible in the rebuilt forge wall. The ground level is lower at the rear, with no visible door.

Inside, the interior has a five-bay roof, blackened by smoke, indicating it was likely divided by low partitions. The roof structure consists of jointed cruck framing, oak timbers with morticed, cambered collars, apex yokes, and threaded purlins. One cruck post is missing from the forge. Surviving floors have chamfered and stopped cross beams, along with some chamfered and stopped joists. The upper end has a jettied section over a chamfered and stopped muntin and plank oak screen with a shouldered, flat-headed doorway separating the hall from an unheated room. The hall fireplace, likely inserted in the mid-16th century, has monolith granite jambs, a large oven to one side, and a chamfered and stopped oak lintel. The hearth back is granite ashlar with a stone plinth and cornice facing the passage. Another hearth exists in the front wall of the lower room, also with a chamfered and stopped oak lintel. Flooring in this area has been largely replaced. The stairs are mostly 20th century, though an oak handrail and newel post survive at the upper end.