Description: Showing the smithy and blacksmith's house on the east side of Gotham Lane, near the junction with Brown's Lane. The Smithy (now known as The Forge) is one of the oldest cottages still standing in Barton today. During the time of the Sacheverells a great many dignitaries made regular visits to the Manor, and if their entourage of footmen, grooms and the like could not all be accommodated there, the attic room over the smithy was often used as their sleeping quarters. As well as being home to the village blacksmith, it is thought once to have been a local ale-house and also the village bakery: certainly a very large old brick-built oven still stands in what is now the kitchen. However, it can be said with certainty that the Post Office was once situated there, and records from 1864, when John Oliver was blacksmith, state: 'Post Office at John Oliver's, letters arrive at 9.30 am and are despatched at 5.30pm' - obviously villagers did not expect to read the mail over breakfast in those days! The blacksmith who lived and worked at The Smithy during living memory was Tom Mills, whose father George took over from the Olivers around the turn of the 20th century. Tom was a skilled man who could make shoes for the daintiest pony to the heaviest shire, along with mending farm implements, making field gates and producing extremely fine wrought-iron work. (information from Barton in Fabis Parish Council website)