The Old Smithy, Ranby Grange, Goulceby Road, Ranby, Lincolnshire: Historic Building Survey

Photography was undertaken in 35mm digital SLR colour using a 10.4 Mpixel format. Photographs were taken of the buildings to create an initial archive, and included general shots of the site and detailed photography of room arrangement; main elevations and constructional details such as window openings, and fixtures and fittings, such as doors and window fenestration. Weather conditions on the day were overcast with a grey start and the cloud not breaking all day, although generally warm. Low light levels necessitated the use of flash in all interior situations and included some fill-in flash to penetrate the shadows in the exterior shots. The photographs were further supplemented by Room-based record sheets and Brickwork recording sheets. The proposed redevelopment site is located within the grounds of Ranby Grange, a partially extant 19th-century unlisted farmstead. The site is currently occupied by The Old Smithy, a tied cottage which is L-shaped in plan and built of brick with numerous modern extensions, and two probably original brick outbuildings: one a former coalhouse and laundry, the other a former smithy named on maps from the late 19th century onwards. The 'Old Smithy' represents an example of modest accommodation constructed to house farm labourers at the end of the 19th century. It is a tied cottage - one built by the owner of an estate to house one of his employees, in this case probably a blacksmith. The cottage forms part of a farm appearing in 19th-century documentation as Ranby Cottage, with the name changing to Ranby Grange in the early 20th century. The farm partially overlies earthworks associated with the medieval village, and is thought to be post-enclosure in origin. The smithy appears to have been active at least into the 1950s, as it is still labelled on an Ordnance Survey map of this date. The Old Smithy site consists of an original SE-facing block, a recent two-storey northern extension and garage and older porch and bathroom extensions. The smithy itself is one of two outbuildings situated to the east of the cottage. Its orientation follows the line of a boundary shown on old OS maps; approximately N-S, while the cottage and the other outbuilding are perpendicular to the modern access track to the west. Materials and style suggest the cottage is a later replacement - the Smithy building itself appears older. A second outbuilding to the immediate south of the smithy contained a coalstore and laundry directly associated with the extant cottage building. This is a type of building seen throughout rural Lincolnshire, and an example such as this was built as a later phase of accommodation for farm labourers was required to house additional workers associated with the increasing productivity of outlying farms established on marginal land after the enclosure reaped the benefits of their now improved agricultural land.