The Smithy, Pylewell Park

The Smithy at Pylewell Park is an estate smithy built between 1897 and 1909. It is constructed from yellow brick with a tiled, half-hipped roof. The single-storey building is laid out with its ridge running south-east to north-west. The north-western end contains the forge workshop, while the south-eastern end features a cart shed with a double-doored entrance.

Architecturally, the building shows openings with cambered heads. The south-western front has a central buttress with offsets. To the left of the buttress is a two-light casement window alongside two single-light fixed windows, all with metal frames. To the right of the buttress are two single-light windows and a pair of half-glazed cart doors. The tiled roof includes a substantial stack to the left of centre, featuring a moulded, stepped top, and a smaller stack to its right, which may have been truncated. The north-western end has three blank openings, and the south-eastern end is also blank. Both ends have a hipped roof extending to a gable.

The rear of the building, to the north-east, has three single-light windows with metal frames in the centre, and a projecting bay to the left with a blocked doorway.

Internally, the dividing wall between the cart shed and workshop remains intact, featuring a doorway connecting the two spaces at its south-western end. The central forge has brick walling surrounding a cinder bed, with two inset metal cooling tanks on the south-eastern side. A large, circular bellows is positioned on the north-western side, connected to the back of the forge chimney. A smaller forge chimney against the south-eastern dividing wall contains a displaced metal hearth. The interior space is open to the ridge and the roof structure includes a central truss and two half-trusses at each hipped end, each with a tie beam and principals supporting a single rank of purlins on each side.