Pell Wall Stables

Pell Wall Stables is a stable block and coach house, dated 1902, designed by Fred Lynde of Manchester for James Munro Walker. The building is constructed of orange brick with grey sandstone dressings, some of which have been painted. Timber framing is present to the first floors, with plastered panels. The roofs are hipped and slate-covered. The property follows a square courtyard plan.

The south-east front (the entrance front) is one storey high and features a chamfered blue brick plinth, battered buttresses with chamfered offsets, and a roof with two pairs of louvered triangular dormer ventilators and louvred gablets at each end. It has 4:1:4 bays, with three-light stone mullioned windows that have chamfered top and bottom reveals. A projecting central entrance has battered sides, a round archway with impost bands and keystone, and a parapeted gable with coping and a datestone in the apex inscribed “JMW/1902”. One boarded gate remains, with a ramped top rail. A barrel-vaulted archway incorporates a lattice-ribbed soffit. A central octagonal wooden cupola rises above, featuring a battered base with fishscale tile hanging, round arches with impost blocks and keys, a ramped balustrade with lozenge-shaped balusters, a dentil and moulded wooden cornice, and a copper-covered ogee dome with a wrought-iron weathervane. Clocks are positioned to the front and rear.

The courtyard's rear of the front range has continuously overhanging eaves supported by cast-iron brackets, and a central open gable with a brattished cambered collar and planted timbers in the apex. There are three stable doors with three-part rectangular overlights. Side ranges are one storey high with an attic. They feature small-paned wooden cross windows and stable doors, each with a three-part rectangular overlight. Pairs of gabled semi-dormers are present, each with three-light wooden casements and a brattished cambered collar.

The rear (coach house) range provides two storeys. A central square wooden dovecote is topped with fishscale tile hanging and has two tiers of openings, with a gable to each face containing planted timbers. The coach house also includes two brick stacks. The rear range also possesses seven first-floor two-light wooden casements. Five former carriage openings are present at ground floor level; the right-hand pair retain boarded doors, while three on the left have been blocked and replaced with small-paned wooden cross windows flanking a stable door with overlight. A passageway is positioned off-centre to the right, with a window to its right. A continuous glazed verandah extends along the rear, featuring a central cast-iron column.

The interiors of the side ranges contain loose boxes. A painted inscription within the entrance archway reads: "ERECTED MAY-NOV. 1902/FRED.C.LYNDE.A.M.INST.C.E./ARCHITECT/MANCHESTER THOMAS BROAD LIMITED/CONTRACTORS/GT.MALVERN." James Munro Walker acquired Pell Wall around 1901. Locally it is thought that the stables were built for racing purposes. An earlier structure is indicated by a tithe map of 1838.