Hammer And Hand

Hammer and Hand is an inn that has been converted into a house, built in 1784 for Emmanuel and Betty Strickland. The building features herringbone-tooled sandstone on a tooled plinth, with tooled raised quoins and a pantile roof. It has a central-stairhall plan, is one room deep, and includes a rear service wing. The structure is two storeys high with a three-window front.

The entrance door consists of six raised and fielded panels set in a rusticated surround made of long and short quoins. Above the door is a datestone with an oval center panel that features the initials S E B and the year 1784. On either side of the door are rectangular panels carved with the arms of the Blacksmiths' company, depicting a phoenix in flames with three hammers, along with the inscriptions "By hammer and hand" and "All arts do stand." There is a Venetian window in a raised, keyed surround above the door, while the other windows are 16-pane sashes also in raised, keyed surrounds.

The building has a raised first-floor band and a cavetto-moulded eaves course supported by iron brackets. The gables are coped with shaped kneelers, and there are end stacks.

Inside, the ground floor features exposed quarter-round moulded joists in the front rooms. The doors are six raised and fielded panels with original fittings, and there is similar panelling around the cellar door beneath the stairs. The window recesses are also panelled. In the room to the left, there is a stone fireplace with a dentilled cornice shelf over a frieze carved with garlands in low relief. The room to the right has a stone fireplace with a moulded cornice shelf over a finely tooled lintel with incised voussoirs and reeded tooled jambs.

On the first floor, there is panelling around the attic stairs, which are enclosed behind a door on H hinges. The room to the right features a late 18th-century firegrate in a plain stone surround. The attic contains two pairs of crossed apex cruck trusses.