The Forge, House and attached boundary wall, 13-15 Park Street, Market Bosworth, Leicestershire

Summary

A house and adjoining forge, both of late-C18 date.

Description

A house and adjoining forge, both of late-C18 date.

PLAN: house and forge are both orientated east / west and both have a rectangular main block facing south to Park Street. The buildings abut each other with a straight joint; the forge is to the west and the house to the east.

The forge is single-storey under a pitched roof with attic storage. It has two attached single-story workshops extending north at right angles from the west end of the main block forming an ‘L’ shape plan. The workshop immediately adjoining the forge is narrower than the second, northernmost one. There is a brick paved yard immediately outside the back door of the forge where horses could be shoed. The yard contains a well, now covered with glass, which provided a source of water.

The house is two stories with cellar and attic and a broad, two-storey wing extending north to the rear at right angles from its east end forming an ‘L’ shape plan (‘U’ shaped in conjunction with the forge and its workshops). The rear wing has single-storey outshots on its east and west elevations, and two projecting single-storey bays to its north elevation.

MATERIALS: both buildings are built in brick with clay tiles roofs and timber doors and windows. Some areas of brick are rendered.

FORGE

EXTERIOR: walls are brick in Flemish garden wall bond with a dentil course at eaves level and a corbelled kneeler to the west end of the south elevation. There is a stone ball finial over the kneeler, and a matching finial at the west end of the roof ridge. Openings are under segmental arches in rowlock brick courses; a single course for windows and double for the front door. The front elevation is rendered from the ground to the base of the window cills, and the west elevation of forge and attached workshops is fully rendered and devoid of openings. Window cills are chamfered blue brick. The chimney to the western of the forge’s two hearths is directly above that hearth, off-centre to the west, coming through the roof just north of the ridge. The stack is square set with oversailing courses with dentil decoration at its top. The earlier workshop directly adjoining the north of the forge is single-storey with a mono-pitch roof falling from west to east. The later, larger, northernmost workshop is in brick and has a broad, shallow pitched steel truss roof.

The front, south elevation has a central timber plank door flanked by a pair of multi-paned iron windows. The front wall is furnished with multiple iron ties, and a row of iron gutter brackets.

The east elevation of the forge abuts the house. The east elevation of the earlier workshop has a glazed double door set within a large multi-pane window. The larger workshop has a double wooden door to the south of its east elevation, with a wide eight-light window to the north.

The rear, north facing elevation of the forge has a single doorway off-centre to the west and a small window west of this. Over the ground floor openings is a double wooden shutter to the attic storage space. The north elevation of the far workshop has a large eight-light window.

INTERIOR: one room with a stair up to a mezzanine floor. There is a smaller free-standing brick hearth to west, and a larger brick hearth against the east party wall with the house; the chimney to this larger hearth shares the stack at the west end of the house. The floor is brick and concrete. Various tools and machinery are present including two anvils and a large bellows. The earlier of the two workshops behind the forge is open to its mono-pitch roof, the later, northernmost workshop has a mezzanine to the south end, the north end is open to its steel truss roof.

HOUSE

EXTERIOR: walls to the front block are brick in Flemish bond with a dentil course at eaves level. The rear wing is in late-C20 brick in stretcher bond. The ground falls slightly from east to west, partially revealing the cellar. The line between cellar and the ground floor is marked out in three courses of blue bricks with the lowest course being chamfered. Windows generally date to the late-C20 or early-C21 and are under brick flat arch lintels. The windows have three parts divided by two mullions, each part of eight small lights, with the central part sliding open horizontally. There are two chimney stacks, one at either end of the ridge of the pitched roof to the street-facing main block. Each has two diamond-set flues with over-sailing courses with dentil decoration at the tops of the stacks, one of the western flues is for the eastern hearth in the forge.

The front, south elevation has three windows at ground floor level, arranged symmetrically with three windows at first floor above. The modern front door is left of the central window. It has two steps up to it and is under a soldier-course flat arch lintel. A scrolled iron sign bracket hangs above the door and between the first-floor windows. Iron gutter brackets are spaced along the line of the eaves.

The east elevation of the front block is rendered, with a single window towards the roadside at attic level. Facing east from the rear wing are a window to the C21 ground floor extension to the dining room, and a window at first floor level at the north end of the building.

The rear, north elevation is dominated by the modern rear wing which is solid except for the modern windows to the two ground floor bays to the rear wing. West of the rear wing, allowing access to the main block, is a back porch with a window either side of its doorway. West of this, at the west end of the rear of the main block, is an external door to the WC.

The west elevation of the front block is largely obscured by the adjoining forge, but there is a single six-light casement window in the gable at attic level towards the road. The west elevation of the rear wing of the house has two windows at first floor level.

INTERIOR: the front door opens into a porch then through a modern screen door to the hall, with study and WC to the left, reception room to the right and the kitchen in the rear wing ahead. The stairs up have modern balusters and are accessed from the dining room, which is reached through the kitchen and forms the eastern part of the rear wing. There is a large open brick fireplace on the east wall of the eastern front reception room. A brick cellar which contains a well is accessed from a staircase down from the kitchen. The first and attic floors accommodate bed and bathrooms. Exposed ceiling joists and beams are present in most rooms, and the purlins are visible on the attic floor. Some rooms have older boards to all or part of their floors, and there are occasional old plank doors. Much of the rear wing appears to have been rebuilt re-using old materials.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: a brick wall in English bond under saddleback coping bricks extends east from the south front of the house and holds a double gate before turning north to enclose the eastern boundary of the site.

History

In pre-industrialised England, blacksmiths’ workshops were where small scale domestic, commercial and agricultural ironwork was produced and repaired, and where horse-shoeing was carried out. These workshops were common in most communities up until the C20 by which point they mainly specialised in work for horses, or architectural pieces such as gates and railings. By the later-C20 many blacksmiths’ workshops had been either demolished or converted to other uses.

A typical workshop would comprise a single room with a central working area, a forge at one end of the building and storage at the other. There would usually be a yard for shoeing horses, and a water source. Essential equipment would be a bellows and anvil, with many other tools and machines to aid the metal working processes stored in the building, often on display for easy access.

The forge building in Market Bosworth is thought to have been built in the late-C18, probably contemporary with the adjoining house with which it shares a chimney. House and forge both appear on the 1847 tithe map. The workshop to the rear of the forge is not on the 1886 Ordnance Survey map, but is on the 1903 edition. A smaller outbuilding attached to the rear of the workshop is replaced by the present larger building on the 1958 Ordnance Survey map. The rear wing of the house appears to have been re-built and extended in the late-C20, with further additions in the early-C21.

The forge had closed as a business on the retirement of the last blacksmith Clem Phillips, the owner from 1933 to 1973. The forge was unused until the very late-C20, from when it was in occasional use until the early 2020s.

Reasons for Listing

The Forge, House and attached boundary wall to the east, 13-15 Park Street, Market Bosworth, a house and attached forge of late C18 date, are listed for the following principal reasons:

Architectural Interest:

* architecturally the function of the blacksmith’s forge can be determined from its floor plan and utilitarian design;

* the house is a vernacular take on the restrained town house of the late-C18;

* internally, the forge survives well, retaining hearths, anvil blocks and other fixtures related to ironworking.

Historic Interest:

* the forge illustrates how the essential commodity of ironwork was produced for local markets from the C18 to C20;

* together the house and forge are an interesting survival illustrating aspects of domestic and commercial life in a market town.

External Links

Historic England Listing

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