The Smithy, Pylewell Park

Summary

An estate smithy, dating from the period between 1897 and 1909.

Reasons for Designation

The Smithy at Pylewell Park, Hampshire is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* the building has a carefully-considered design to suit its practical purpose, with a decorative outline, reflecting its placing as part of a group of buildings in a landscaped country-house park.

Historic interest:
* as a rare survival of an estate smithy in largely original condition which retains a high level of its original equipment.

Group value:
* with Pylewell House (Grade II*), The Mill House, Pylewell Park (Grade II) and The Dairy, Pylewell Park (Grade II) and with Pylewell Park, which is recorded on the National Register of Parks and Gardens at Grade II*.

History

The forge at Pylewell first appears on the Ordnance Survey (OS) map published in 1897. It is shown on the OS map published in 1909 with an extension to its N side, which also appears on the 1932 map, but which has now been removed.

Details

An estate smithy, dating from the period between 1897 and 1909.

MATERIALS & PLAN: yellow brick with a tiled, half-hipped roof. A single-storey building, oriented with its ridge running south-east to north-west. The forge workshop is to the north-western end and the south east end has a cart shed with double-doored entrance. The larger forge is placed in the middle of the workshop, with a smaller hearth for detailed work set against the wall which divides the workshop from the cart shed.

EXTERIOR: openings across the building have cambered heads. The south-western front has a buttress with offsets to the centre of the wall. To the left of this is a two-light casement and two single-light fixed lights with metal frames. At right of the buttress are two, single-light windows and a pair of half-glazed cart doors. The tiled roof has a stack at left of centre with moulded, stepped top and a smaller stack to its right of lesser height, which may have been decapitated.

The north-western end has three blank openings to its centre, and the south-eastern end is blank. Both ends have a hipped roof to the lower portion with a gablet above.

The north-east or rear of the building has three, single-light windows with metal frames, as before, to its centre and a projecting bay to the left with a blocked doorway.

INTERIOR: the dividing wall between the cart shed and the workshop is intact and has a doorway to connect the two spaces at its south-western end. The forge to the centre of the workshop floor has brick walling surrounding a cinder bed and two, inset, metal cooling tanks to its south-eastern side. On the north-western side is a large, circular bellows, connected to the rear of the forge chimney. The smaller forge chimney against the south-eastern dividing wall appears to have a displaced, metal hearth.

The space is open to the ridge and the roof has a central truss and two half-trusses to each hipped end, each of which has a tie beam with principles, supporting a single rank of purlins to each side.

End of official list entry

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