Forge Court

Forge Court was built in 1965 (see the engraved slab in the archway), using old tiles and bricks to blend with the house on the left of the archway that used to be known as Trythes. A Sun Insurance plaque on its wall is registered under Thomas Bunch Blacksmith 10th June 1760, but, apart from the modern bow windows, the house is much older. It was sold in 1598 or 1599 by Richard Geale, then one of Yateley’s wealthiest inhabitants.

The forge was on the right of the archway in a low tiled building that was a working smithy until the 1930s. The blacksmith had been an essential member of the community since iron was first in common use, making and mending every sort of agricultural and domestic implement.

Mrs Elizabeth Bunch, second wife of a later blacksmith, also named Thomas Bunch, kept a dame school at Trythes before the village school on The Green (now the Village Hall) was opened in 1865. In about 1903 William Bettesworth moved the Post Office from the shop next door to the church to Trythes, operating now from a wooden hut behind the forgeThis appears to be either incorrect, or the wooden hut was only in use for some of teh time the Post office was at Trythes : by 1924 the Post office was being operated from a shop in one of the front rooms of Trythes, as shown by contemporary photographs and described in detail by Norah Stilwell, who moved into the rest of Trythes in 1924. See Clooty, Norah Stilwell, 1931. When the lease ran out, Colonel Lawford of Yateley Court, who owned the land on the other side of the road, allowed Mr Bettesworth the postmaster to buy a piece of it for a new post office (closed in 1987 and now a chemist’s) and the bungalow beside it (now Parkers the undertakers).

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