Vulcan Cottage And Smithy, Main Street, Whitsome

Vulcan Cottage and Smithy is an earlier 19th-century building with later additions, located on Main Street in Whitsome. It is a single-storey, three-bay rectangular-plan former blacksmith's cottage, featuring a single-storey wing at the rear that forms an L-plan, along with a lower single-storey pantiled block adjoining to the north. The cottage is constructed from squared and snecked tooled cream sandstone, with lightly droved sandstone margins and random rubble sandstone on the sides and rear. It has projecting cills, while the former smithy is made of tooled rubble sandstone, with part whinstone rubble at the rear and long and short rubble surrounds to its openings. The pantiled rubble sandstone block has part whitewashed render, and there are whitewashed brick single-storey outbuildings at the rear.

On the southeast elevation facing Main Street, there are steps leading to a boarded timber door at the center, topped by a 2-pane fanlight, with single windows in the flanking bays. The southwest side elevation features a single attic light centered beneath the apex in a gabled bay that is advanced to the outer right. The former smithy, which is a single-storey wing recessed to the left, includes a 2-leaf boarded timber door offset to the right of center, a small-pane window in the bay to the left, and a boarded timber door in the bay to the right, along with a 2-pane fanlight. The single-storey pantiled wing, recessed to the outer left, has a 2-leaf boarded timber door to the right (partially missing) and a single opening in the bay to the left, with a lean-to addition to the outer left.

The building features 4-pane timber sash and case glazing, with some replacement glazing at the rear and a skylight at the front. The original small-pane glazing remains in the smithy at the rear. The roofs of the house and smithy are covered with graded grey slate, featuring raised stone skews, while the lower block has red pantiles. There are brick-built corniced apex stacks with circular cans and some cast-iron rainwater goods. The single-storey outbuildings have corrugated-iron roofs.

The interior was not seen in 1997, and no original equipment remains in the former smithy, which has since been converted to a garage. The property is enclosed by a low coped boundary wall at the front, with intersecting wrought-iron hoop railings and a hooped pedestrian entry gate.