The Old Blacksmith's Shop

Summary

A mid-late C19 smithy with storage bay and attached pigsty.

Reasons for Designation

The Old Blacksmith’s Shop at Knighton, Broad Chalke, Wiltshire, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest
* as a good example of a small mid-late C19 blacksmith’s workshop with good quality architectural detailing;
* the building has survived remarkably intact with a complete interior including forge and anvil block;
* the attached pigsty is built in a sympathetic style and was probably placed to benefit its former occupants from the heat of the forge.

Historic interest:
* as an interesting and poignant reminder of the important role of small metal industry within rural communities.

Group value:
* with Knighton Manor (listed at Grade II) on the site of a deserted medieval village with an adjacent former mill site and farmstead.

History

The Old Blacksmith’s Shop dates to the mid-C19 and is first shown on the Ordnance Survey Map of 1887 where it is shown close to Knighton Farm and Knighton Mill, and is marked as ‘Smithy’. The watermill site has medieval origins and the mill was rebuilt in the C19. Knighton Manor (Grade II), nearby to the east, is of late C16 date on the site of an earlier building associated with a deserted medieval village. Between 1901 and 1925 a pigsty was built alongside the west wall of the Blacksmith’s Shop. The smithy building was in use by father and son blacksmiths, latterly Jack Carter until he retired in the 1990s, from which point the building was left undisturbed with its fittings, tools and other materials in place.

Details

A blacksmith’s shop of mid-C19 date with an attached early C20 pigsty.

MATERIALS: constructed of red brick, local rubble stone and flint with timber roof structures covered in slate and a timber loft. The forge is constructed of brick with a brick chimney. The iron anvil is mounted on a stone block. There are fitted timber workbenches to the walls. Most of the windows have metal frames and chamfered brick architraves. The rear window is of timber. The floors are earthen with some areas overlaid in poured concrete. The loft is boarded.

PLAN: built on a north-east/ south-west alignment and facing south-east it is arranged as a single-room smithy with an entrance from the adjacent open-fronted workshop area, which is lofted above. To the rear is a lean-to pigsty with a separate entrance and a walled enclosure.

DESCRIPTION: the principal elevation has a cart opening to the left and two wide window openings to the right under cambered brick heads, chamfered architraves and metal frames. The end and rear elevations are of rubblestone and flint with brick banding. The south end has a small loft opening to the gable, the north end has a wide metal-framed window. To the rear left is a lean-to pigsty and to the right is a two-light opening to the rear of the smithy and a walled enclosure with concrete trough. The smithy interior is open to the roof and has a brick forge set forward from the back wall with an anvil and block to its left. There are workbenches fixed to each wall and a loft opening, accessed by a ladder, to the right of the plank entrance door. The forge has all its operational components and there are electrical fittings to the room. The two queen post roof trusses have struts, high collars and iron straps. There are two rows of purlins.

Sources

Websites
A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 13, Jane Freeman and Janet H Stevenson, 'Parishes: Broad Chalke', in A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 13, South-West Wiltshire: Chalke and Dunworth Hundreds, ed. D A Crowley, London, 1987, 36-52., accessed 01/10/2021 from https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/wilts/vol13/pp36-52#anchorn86
Heritage Gateway: Knighton, Hob UiD: 213938, accessed 14/11/2021 from https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=6acd8f9d-ce83-4607-8a1f-ab3f45d77ddc&resourceID=19191

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