Weelsby Park Riding School Including Wall And Railings

Weelsby Park Riding School, including wall and railings

A stable block dated 1865, built for Alexander Grant-Thorold of Weelsby Old Hall and now converted to a riding school, stables and dwellings. The building is constructed in red brick with a Welsh slate roof and is arranged in a U-shape enclosing a stableyard, with a wall and railings closing off the south side.

The complex comprises three ranges: a stable, coach-house and granary to the north; a stable and granary to the west; and a loose-box and tack-room to the east, which was originally single-storey but was raised to two storeys in 1992–3 in matching style and materials. The second storey throughout is now used as dwellings.

All ranges feature a plinth, a dentilled brick first-floor sill band and dentilled eaves cornice. The north range is the focal point of the courtyard elevation, with three central segmental-arched carriage entrances with double doors flanked by pairs of board doors to stables with 3-pane overlights beneath segmental arches. The first floor has 20th-century 6-pane casements in original square-headed openings with rusticated brick Gibbs surrounds and stone sills on brick dentils. Above the courtyard front is a central stone plaque carved in relief with the "AGT" cypher and date. A narrow raised gable with moulded brick kneelers and stone coping with ball finials sits above this. The most striking feature is a central octagonal bellcote with louvred sides and pointed arches supporting a pyramidal spire topped with an ornate wrought-iron weather-vane, which houses a circular clockface in a rubbed-brick surround with keystones.

The west range has a board door to the far left, a pair of ground-floor windows and first-floor windows matching those of the north range. Its left return contains a single window with three vertical lights in a similar rusticated surround. The east range features a board door to the left beneath a segmental arch with a 6-pane window to the right in rusticated surround, and two wide segmental-arched openings with inserted stable doors flanked by barred side-lights and brick blocking. Both the west and east ranges have hipped roofs with iron finials. The west range has a stack with a tumbled-in brick base.

The rear elevations have windows similar to those on the courtyard fronts. The north side of the north range displays a row of small ventilators and nine first-floor windows grouped in threes. The east side of the east range has a ground-floor window and an original board door serving the first floor to the right. The west side of the west range has a ground-floor window, three first-floor windows and a blocked first-floor door. A small yard to the west is enclosed by a wall with dentilled brick and stone coping, pierced by two arched doorways, one beneath a dentilled brick band.

The interior of the north range stables feature patterned tiled walls and herringbone brick floors. A four-bay wooden arcade of chamfered piers with moulded capitals supports round arches containing pierced roundels in the spandrels.

The stableyard is closed to the south by a low plinth wall supporting circular-section wrought-iron railings between central gate-piers.

The building was originally constructed as a stable block to Weelsby Hall.