Historical Impact Statement

No photos for this one, but the historical impact statement (or HIS) turns up today.  It's fascinating and gives real insight into the history of the Old Forge.  I've extracted some of the information rather than publish the whole report!  The main thing is that the report is helpful and supportive of the plans we're putting in and hopefully the planning officer will find it hard to ignore and/or disagree with.

"The Forge was once part of the Banks Fee Estate that was broken up and sold in 1924.  The building continued to function as a blacksmith’s forge until just before WWII.  The Old Forge consists of a three-cell cottage attached to a small hay barn on a sloping site with an open-sided shed attached at right angles to the main building at the rear. 

By the late 19^th century the village and its surrounding lands were divided between three principal landowners: the Leigh’s, the Dugdales, who owned nearby Sezincote House and the Godman’s, who had purchased Banks Fee from the Earl of Coventry in 1865.

The date given in the listing description is understandably vague, however the simplicity of the architectural features shared with several buildings in this part of the village would indicate that the Old Forge dates from the latter end of the 18^th century or early 19^th century when cottage construction and land ownership was funded by large estates rather than smaller yeoman famers and independent artisans.

The Old Forge has had several building phases and these are still evident to the casual observer.  Its first phase was as a three unit detached house with upper storeys.  The house had a gable entry at the north end of the building.  Entry was alongside the chimneybreast and into the rear passage.  The middle room, accessed from the passage, was unheated, and beyond this lay the parlour with its large and impressive extant fireplace.  The upper storey was accessed from a stone spiral staircase alongside this fireplace, the markings of which are visible since the removal of modern wall finishes.  It is unlikely that the room division is original due to the positioning of the windows on the front elevation.

The second important phase was the addition of the barn with hayloft above, this required a few alterations to the host building namely a new entrance which this time was located where the third window on the front elevation now is.  The stone window dressings were removed and a new entrance inserted at the front, the rear entrance may also have been inserted at this time.  The rear ground floor windows appear to be part of the building’s earliest phase as these share the same stone dressings as on the front elevation. 

The staircase, previously in the south gable end alongside the chimneybreast was removed and a simple timber staircase erected in the central service room of the ground floor accessed from the rear passage.  Significantly this was built on top of flagstones that remain and indicate the earlier flooring material and level probably throughout the ground floor part of the house.  The first floor central room would now have been partitioned to allow access to the bedrooms on either side; a smaller room at the front of the house and stair access to the loft rooms above.  Alterations to the floorboards on the first and second floor are evidence of the later insertion of the staircase and the partitions were evidently built on top of the boards.  Due to the steep pitch of the roof reducing the size of these loft rooms the central room on the second floor was retained as a circulation space.

Inserted gabled dormer windows on the upper floor may have been part of this enlargement phase, giving the Old Forge a more upright appearance.  The southerly upper room retained its primary storage function despite the inserted dormer window as the entrance into this room has remained restricted in height due to a tie-beam.  However the identical space at the north end of the building was given a full-height central opening allowing it to be fully used.

The third notable phase was when the adjoining barn and hayloft was incorporated into the living quarters of the cottage substantially extending the accommodation on the ground and first floor.  The most likely time for this to occur would have been after the ancillary buildings at the rear of the cottage ceased to be used as a forge and blacksmiths, which was after WWII.

The rising ground of the site at the rear has dictated that there are two entrances to the barn: one at hayloft level and the other to the lower level.  Attached to the rear of the barn is an open-sided stone animal shelter: the ground level here is between the two levels of the barn.  Again there are indications in the stonework that this area has been much altered, nevertheless the stone shelter despite several re-builds and replacement roofing shows signs of being part of the barn structure with keyed-in stones on adjoining walls.  Extending away from the Old Forge on a sloping site there are a number of ancillary buildings in varying stages of disintegration, the most recognisable being the privy furthest from the main building.  

Map regression shows that the operational part of the forge was a detached building at the rear of the main house with an enclosed area beyond extending along the west boundary.  The stone foundations of the Smithy near the main house are still evident and a substantial amount of rubble stone has been retained on site, some of it soot blackened suggesting that it may have formed part of the walls of the Smithy. The rear of the cottage and barn area has been marginally compromised by the close proximity of 20^th century development hemming in the site.

The Old Forge was one of three blacksmiths in the village: one at the other end of the village was part of the Leigh estate, the other possibly independent.  The forge on High Street was part of the Banks Fee Estate.  The 1851 and 1861 census tells us that William Meadows and his wife Anne lived there into their retirement as recorded in the 1871 census.  Arthur Fry Junior was probably the last blacksmith to live there, recorded in a trade directory in 1931 and by 1939 there were no blacksmiths in the village."