Stableblock At Illston Grange

Stableblock at Illston Grange

This is a fine example of a hunting box stableblock, built around 1860 for the Baillie family in High Victorian style. The building is constructed of red brick with stone dressings and Swithland slate roofs with pantile to inner slopes and coped gables.

The stableblock is planned on a triple-gabled rectangular form, with stables and lofts over either side of a long, narrow two-storey covered court. A central tower rises two stages above the front, creating an impressive composition. The entrance front, which originally faced the main house, features triple gables with a round-arched stone doorway in the centre, flanked by massive double panelled doors with ornamental hinges. Above the doorway is a circular window with cross mullions, and each side gable contains a two-light mullioned window. To the left at ground level is an arched kennel opening.

The garden-facing front displays a range of eleven windows of single and two-light types, mostly multipaned casements. The centre features the tower with a pair of arrow slits and louvred mullioned circular windows to the sides, topped with gables. A clock face appears on the front of the tower. At the rear gable is an unusual tall opening with brick louvres, possibly a former dovecote. The left side shows two storeys of windows, including another kennel opening and two loft openings. The single-storey section to the left contains four two-light windows, with the roof hipped over a twentieth-century window forming part of a later cottage addition.

The interior is dominated by the central covered court, which is exceptionally impressive. It features a ten-bay open arched-braced roof with braces springing from stone corbels, two tiers of purlins, and panels with three open roundels above the collar of each truss. From this court, the individual stables are accessed, each equipped with heavy panelled and battened doors, tarred brick sides, corner troughs, setted floors and cast-iron window grilles. A tack room retains a blocked fireplace, cupboard and wall-mounted hooks for equipment. One large stable, converted to a cowshed, preserves the framing elements for stalls and may have housed mares in foal.

A stair leads to the hay lofts above, with an open bridge linking the two sides of the blocks between them. This bridge features a decorative panelled and openwork balustrade and likely served both as a passageway and as a vantage point for observing the horses below. Much of a hoist mechanism survives at this location. The lofts are roofed with king-post trusses.

The covered court appears to have served multiple purposes: preparing horses for hunting outside their individual stables under cover, providing a space for huntsmen to mount and dismount, and potentially offering a covered area for gentle exercise or schooling, being sufficiently long and wide to allow a tight turn for a horse.

Illston Grange, the main house of which this stableblock was an integral part, was demolished in 1927. The area surrounding Illston on the Hill was of great importance to the Leicestershire foxhunting tradition, which the design and quality of this stableblock clearly reflects.