Stables Of Former Manor House

This is a stable block, originally part of a larger manor house. It was likely built between 1535 and 1541 by Sir John Gostwick, who served as Master of the Horse to Cardinal Wolsey and later held positions for Henry VIII. The building is constructed of roughly squared limestone rubble with ashlar dressings, which may have been reused from the nearby Newnham Priory (dissolved in 1535). It features a clay tile roof and is a rectangular, two-story block, with the upper floor likely providing accommodation for grooms. The gables are crow-stepped, with moulded copings and gargoyles on the kneeler stones.

A string course runs along the sides at first-floor level and at the eaves of the gable ends. There are three-stage buttresses, set diagonally to the corners, with two on the front and rear elevations. The west-facing front elevation has, on the ground floor, two four-light windows in the outer bays. These windows have four-centred arched lights and stone mullions with square heads and moulded labels. The first floor has a similar three-light window to the right of the central bay. A broad, central doorway features a four-centred head and moulded dripstone.

The east elevation has a three-light window on the first floor, central bay, in a matching style. On the ground floor, the right-hand bay has a blocked, square-headed three-light window with a relieving arch above. A blocked square-headed doorway is in the ground-floor left-hand bay, while the first-floor left-hand bay contains a chimney breast supported by three uniquely carved corbels. The gable ends each feature three-light windows in a similar style, although one, believed to have served as a service room with a fireplace, has more elaborate mouldings to the mullions, heads, and surround; this also has a relieving arch and eaves-level string course that returns around the base of the window.

Internally, all windows are supported by wooden lintels. The ground floor retains post holes in the floor and east wall, indicating the original presence of stalls and troughs. The first floor has a five-bay queen strut roof with open arch-braced collar trusses at the centre of each bay. The space is divided into two rooms – three bays to the north and two bays to the south – by a timber-framed wall with brick infill and a plastered surface. This wall is recessed in the western half, with a ceiling above the recessed area. Infill is present in the attic floors of the first, third, and fourth trusses from the north. The south room has a fireplace on the east wall with a depressed four-centred arch and a back wall constructed of herringbone brick, with some 20th-century repairs. An inscription "John Bunyan 1650" carved into the chimney piece is likely not authentic. The building has been refloored in the 20th century, and stairs have been inserted to replace a previous ladder.