6-12, 16 and 18 Main Street

The estate workers’ houses in Main Street appear to have been thatched cottages at one time, but were rebuilt by the Forde family about 1840 with slate roofs, tall Jacobethan chimney stacks and mullioned casement windows, as eight small houses, a smithy and a store.

By 1970, the smithy was virtually roofless, and most of the houses vacant.  The last tenants were rehoused in the Almshouses.

Although the front elevation was not altered substantially, the archways of the former smithy and store were adapted to accommodate conventional house doors, and since the old houses have been combined two-into-one, some door openings have been converted to windows.  At the back, new gables were added to improve headroom over staircases, and the old windows, which were inward-opening casements, were altered to a better weathering outward-opening detail.