Forge Square (formerly Great Boydens/The Row)

See also Great Boydens, The Row now Forge Square and also Little Boydens.

See also South View.

 

The above picture is of Forge Square cottages, with South View to the side, as they were finally built by Ernest George and Peto, replacing the Forge Row cottages which stood on the site.  The Society has a copy of the original (or perhaps first) drawings of Forge Square which are dated May 1886 and commissioned by Samuel Morley.  Samuel Morley died in September 1886 so never saw the project through. These initial drawings show a slightly different plan for the Square, with cottages 3 and 4 (their doors) side by side (rather than cottage 4 being a corner plot) and where cottages 5 and 6 being where they appear today, but cottage 7 not being a maisonette with stairs leading up, but rather an additional small cottage on the side.  There was no Convalescent Home (South View) yet built, or planned.   However, the design of Forge Square changed, cottage 4 became a corner cottage and cottage 7 was built above cottage 6.   It would appear, perhaps, that once Samuel Morley’s son (Samuel Hope Morley) decided to build a convalescent home (plans dated 1890), the original plan and footprint for Forge Square was changed to fit in with the scheme – remembering that at this time, on the other side of South View, were the 3 vestry cottages, so with the plan for the Convalescent Home, the Forge Square cottages were re-designed.  This would have delayed the building of the cottages to a little later: perhaps the reason why we have Edith Hine’s picture of Forge Row (see below) painted ca 1887/88.

 

Below is a copy of these plans:

 

 

Forge Square was one of Samuel Morley’s projects to rebuild cottages in the village, although he died before the project was finished. The houses at Forge Square replaced seven cottages previously known as the Row or Great Boydens –  which, according to Lawrence Biddle “Leigh in Kent 1550-1900” p. 132) consisted of a block of three cottages and two semi-detached cottages, which stood on the site at the time and had formed part of the 1870 sale to Samuel Morley.  We have a better description of these cottages in the 1870 Sales Particulars for Hall Place which describe these cottages under Lot 5:

Firstly a pair of cottage dwellings under one roof, with 9 rooms, no. 54 on the plan – which in 1870 was occupied by Richard Tidey (5 rooms) and George Sales (4 rooms);

Secondly, a further detached cottage dwelling situated close to this with 5 rooms, no. 55 on the plan, occupied by William Shoebridge.

Thirdly, a further four cottage dwellings under one roof, no. 56 on the plan, let in four occupations to George Simmons (4 rooms); Thos Batchelor (5 rooms); John Turner (3 rooms); Mr & Mrs Rye (3 rooms)

 

(In the 1872 Drainage Report we have only information on the first pair of cottage dwellings – no. 54 above:  on the drainage map they are cottages 63 and 64: no. 63 is occupied by a Mr Ellison and no. 64 by Mr Sales.  (both owned by Mr Morley).  No. 63 is described as follows:  “Sink and WC with pan, both connected to main drainage.  Guttering fairly good, delivering by down pipe into water butt, with overflow into drain.  The adjoining cottage, no. 64, is described “no sink.  Down pipes overflows over brick path into cesspool.  One common privy for 64 and 65 (note: no. 65 is occupied by Shoebridge).  Eaves gutters in front.  A new dry earth closet has been added here.”  Unfortunately we have no further information for the other cottages of Forge Row, except that no. 65 is occupied by Shoebridge as stated; and nos. 66, 67, 68, 69 are occupied by Mr Simmons, Mr Batchelor, Mr Turner, and Mr Rye – which correspond to the 1870 Sales Particulars information).

All these three buildings  can be seen on the Edith Hine picture which has recently been given to the village.  Edith Hine was a daughter of Mrs Agnes Heath who lived at The Woods) and in the 1901 census describes herself an artist/sculptor.  This picture is below and the three separate buildings mentioned which formed the Row can be seen to the left of what would have been the Vestry’s charity cottages:

 

 

In 1878 Samuel’s son, Charles, who lived at Coopers in Hawkwood Lane, Chislehurst, employed Ernest George and Peto as architects to design cottages in Morley Lane, Chislehurst  (see Lawrence Biddle “Leigh in Kent 1550-1900 p. 87).   This was the architect that Samuel Morley used with the initial plans of 1886 we see above.  When the work was eventually undertaken, the three buildings of Forge Row (consisting seven cottages/households) were replaced by an equal number of cottages in the form of 1-7 Forge Square as well as a separate building, a convalescent home, later known as South View. 1-7 Forge Square would be to house Hall Place employees and the convalescent home for employees of I & R Morley.  Although, according to Lawrence Biddle again (p. 133) the new cottages at Forge Square were built in about 1885, this was not the case.  The plans above are dated May 1886 and as stated above, they appear to have been changed before the final construction.   This would make sense in respect of dating Edith Hine’s pastel picture.

The five cottages and two flats along the north and west sides of the square which formed the new FORGE SQUARE, designed and built by Sir Ernest George and Peto, could not have been built until after 1887 as the above picture of the former Forge Row, by Edith Hine, must have been done in about 1887/88 because Edith Hine (nee Heath) married William Egerton Hine at Leigh on 1 October 1887.

Forge Square formed an L-shaped two-storey range of buildings in Tudor style. The left wing is of coursed freestone and has a double overhung end gable, and is half timbered with plaster filling. The right wing faces the road and has 2 wide gables across a full width, half-timbered and with plaster filling front. Here there is a brick ground floor and a round angle below shingled gable. There are irregular, many mullioned casements, some flat, some bays. There are Tudor-style arches to doorways, some of stone, some of carved wood. There is a tall, ornamental chimney of brick and stone.

Numbers 1-5 are two storey; No. 6 is a downstairs, one-bedroomed flat; No. 7 is an upstairs flat reached by an external, covered, wood staircase. It has a fairly high pitched, gable ended tiled roof. There are ornamental projecting wood-shingled gables, with pierced bargeboards and a 5-light oriel on the inner return of the projecting left range.

No 1 Forge Square was used as the police house in the village at least from the 1920s until about 1952, when the new police house was built in The Green Lane.

On the east side, South View was built about 1890 – completed early 1891.  See separate item on South View.

 

 

When originally built, the cottages at Forge Square and South View were all thatched; however, the thatch was subsequently replaced by tiles after 1920.

Over time, the cottages of Forge Square have been sold by the Hall Place Estate into private hands. South View passed into private hands in 1954.

The website https://victorianweb.org/art/architecture also is a source for the architects, Ernest George & Peto.  However, although it has information on The Square, currently there is nothing on South View or Forge Square.

 

 

 

Updated by Joyce Field (August 2017)