About The Forge

Opening hours for most shops are: Monday to Saturday 10am to 5pm,

Some shops and the café are also open Sundays 11am to 4pm.

The Forge Shopping Centre in Dronfield is a unique collection of boutique style shops providing individual products and services for individual customers. The café conservatory area is the ideal place to sit and view the shops whilst enjoying a break, or, lunch. You can smell the flowers and see the jewellery and ladies fashions on show. Ladies accessories, fashion jewellery, chocolates, gifts, cards and candles are all available from the shops in the traditional Courtyard area, just outside the conservatory. There is even a genuine well.

Add to this.... a delicatessen, a hair and beauty salon, a chiropodist, soft furnishings, Peak Hearing and Ashgate by Design, and you can see why The Forge Shopping Centre is so popular with local people.

It's an exciting shopping experience with easy access, free parking and with close rail and bus links. Check out the "How to Find Us" page for more details.

The Forge building was originally a forge and it's history is told in the storyboards on display in the Church Street entrance. Many features of the original building are still being used today.

The café and a few of the shops open on Sundays all year round.

The Forge is an exciting shopping experience with something for everyone.

The building itself dates back from the 16th Century and was used as a ‘church house’ for social gatherings, before being split into tenements. This included a Bakehouse, part of which, the oven remains, is still visible outside Hebe Gifts. Winding machinery can still be viewed high up in the roof in the outlet of Soft Options, and The Foundry produced cast iron noses for bombs, aluminium parts for searchlights and bronze bearings for Bren guns during the war.

Even the Conservatory has its own unique history - the steel frame you can see originally formed a machine shop, used during the Second World War. Now glazed instead, enjoy refreshments with friends, whilst watching the world go by, or shopping in the many beautifully presented shops. The Forge Shopping Centre has made a huge difference to Dronfield and has become a centre for the community, with fashion shows, exhibitions, charity events, all giving support locally.

Open six days a week normally and seven days a week to Christmas (check out individual outlet for opening hours) this historic site, with its blend of history, friendly shopkeepers and amazing choice of goods and services is here for you to enjoy.