The Stable House, Heath Hall

The Stable House, at Heath Hall, is a former stable block with bothies (small living quarters) above and attached carriage houses, later converted to a house with the carriage houses now serving as garages. It dates from approximately 1754, with alterations made in 1984. The building was designed by John Carr for John Smyth of Heath Hall, and subsequently remodelled as a house by Francis Johnson, an architect from Bridlington, for Mary Oddie.

The structure is built of hammer-dressed stone with ashlar dressings and a stone slate roof. It is designed in a Classical style, exhibiting a balanced and symmetrical composition. The central, five-bay, U-shaped stable block is flanked by lower, single-storey carriage houses connected by low walls. The stable block features quoins, an ashlar plinth, thin ground-floor sill band, and wider first-floor impost and sill bands. Outer and central bays have archivolted arched recesses. A central doorway is topped by a shouldered architrave and triangular pediment, with double doors and an overlight, approached by a short flight of steps. Sash windows with plain stone surrounds are present in each bay, with square windows on the first floor. The outer bays, set forward, have blocked doorways on their inner returns. A bracketed, continuous casement-moulded eaves cornice runs along the top. The roof is hipped, with separate hips to the front bays. Originally chimney-less, it now has two ashlar ridge stacks with cyma-moulded cornices. Low linking walls are punctuated by doorways with tie-stone jambs and ashlar coping. The carriage houses have ashlar quoins, plinths, impost bands, archivolt-arched carriage entrances, and pedimented gables.

The interior retains no original stable features. Instead, it boasts a fine, 18th-century-style interior, incorporating numerous original details brought in from other houses. These include four finely carved doors and the drawing room doorcase, each featuring six raised-and-fielded panels with egg-and-dart decoration and a beaded central channel, originally from Stillington Hall, circa 1748, attributed to Lord Burlington for the Croft family. The master bedroom has an 18th-century wooden fireplace surround, with an architrave carved with an elaborate swastika design and a dentil cornice, reused from a house by John Carr in Manchester. All doorways are framed by moulded architraves. An open-well staircase has finely-turned balusters, two per riser, and a ramped handrail crafted by Hare and Ransome of York, who also made the panelled shutters to the windows. The drawing room has an 18th-century-style fireplace with an eared architrave, Sienna marble on a black marble base - a design Carr employed in Heath Hall - and a finely-carved pulvinated frieze by F. Johnson, executed by Dick Reid. The plaster cornice in this room is based on one by Carr at Fairfax House, York. The interior is notable for its high level of detailed craftsmanship.