Coach-house at Carnfield Hall

The coach house at Carnfield Hall is a mid-18th century stable block and coach house, later partially converted into a dwelling and a retail facility for a garden centre. Constructed of coursed rubble Coal Measures sandstone with ashlar dressings and quoins, it features a Welsh slate roof with stone coped gables on moulded kneelers and three short stone ridge stacks.

The building is arranged over two storeys and nine bays. The main front has three tall, adjoining semi-circular headed arches with quoined jambs and raised keystones, spanning bays four, five and six. The central arch provides a passageway through the building, while the left arch has double board doors. The arches are flanked by two-light flush mullioned windows, the one to the right being blocked. Further openings include chamfered semi-circular headed doorcases with quoined jambs and raised keystones, and additional two-light flush mullion windows. The upper floor has irregularly spaced two-light flush mullion windows, all with 20-pane casements. The rear elevation mirrors this pattern, with similar windows to the first floor and a similar arch at the opposite end of the passageway. The northern end was converted into a house with 20th-century openings, while the south end contains a glazed lean-to addition forming part of the garden centre retail facilities.

The interior, partially inspected, has massive spine beams with run-out stops and heavy joists to the first floor, accessed via a 20th-century wooden stair. A bolection moulded fireplace is located on one side of the passage through the building.

The stable block was built to the west of Carnfield Hall during a major remodelling that reversed the main elevations of the hall. The coach house now forms part of an extensive garden centre development, with new buildings to the south, and open retail areas to the east and south east.

It forms a group with Carnfield Hall and is listed at Grade II as a well-preserved example of an 18th-century coach house and stable range. Its architectural detailing is characteristic of the building type, representative of its former function, and displays distinctive vernacular masonry building traditions of the North Derbyshire region. Together with Carnfield Hall, it forms an important element of the setting of Carnfield Hall and of the Carnfield Hall Conservation Area.