Stables and coach house at Ashridge

Stable and coach house built 1813-1821 to the designs of Sir Jeffry Wyatville.

The building is constructed of red brick laid in Flemish bond with ashlar stone dressings and a slate roof laid in diminishing courses. It is situated in the stable court to the west of the house, with a long linear plan aligned north-east to south-west. An attached cottage, Egerton Cottage, dates to the later 19th century and occupies the south-west end. A teaching facility called Fairhaven was built onto the north-west side of the stables in 1989 and does not form part of the listing.

The main building is one and a half storeys with a pitched roof featuring shaped brackets supporting the eaves. Four gabled dormers with trefoil bargeboards are set wholly within the roof space, with the middle two being wider than those at the ends. The left hand side, which formerly served as the coach house, is dominated by a series of six depressed carriage arches in ashlar stone, which show evidence of restoration. The arches are glazed except for the third, which leads through to a late 20th-century extension. Attached to each side of the rebuilt passage is an original wooden door with iron studs and strap hinges that would formerly have fitted into the arches. On each side of the arcade are depressed arch doorways containing wooden doors with iron studded fillets, above which are two-light overlights also in depressed arch surrounds filled with diamond leaded lights. The right hand side contains the stalls and features a central door and overlight in the same style, flanked by two-light windows with stone mullions and transoms. The right gable end is faced in ashlar stone and has a stone parapet surmounted by a fleur-de-lis, with stone kneelers topped by cross gabled caps. This treatment differs from the rest of the building and harmonises with the north elevation of the house, as the gable end is visible above the wall.

Egerton Cottage is two storeys with an L-shaped plan and pitched roofs with plain bargeboards. Its fenestration comprises one, two or three-light stone mullions without glazing bars in blocked surrounds. The gabled south-east elevation is lit by three windows on the ground floor and two above, with a corbelled chimney stack truncated at the ridge. At the south-east corner is a short stretch of wall in handmade red brick contemporary with the main house, though the crenellations appear to have been added when the cottage was rebuilt. On the south-west elevation a projecting gabled bay contains the 20th-century front door in a blocked stone surround with an overlight, sheltered by a gabled open-sided porch with shaped bargeboards. To the left is a window with two more above. A single recessed bay to the right is lit by windows on each floor. The upper floor brickwork differs noticeably from that below. The north-west elevation now forms the internal wall of Fairhaven.

The right half of the stables retains its grandly appointed panelled stalls—four in the middle and two larger enclosed stalls at each end. They feature timber partitions with finials and carved end posts rising to form round arches with pierced spandrels. The fitted lead-lined troughs and mangers remain in place. The floor is laid in small herringbone brick with larger vitrified brick forming a grid pattern.

The left half has been converted for offices, with the upper storey forming a single uninterrupted space with modern decoration. A stone spiral staircase at the western end that originally led to the first floor has been blocked off. The cottage interior has been substantially altered and retains very few historic fixtures and fittings, with the exception of a fireplace surround, a few four-panel doors and a late 19th-century balustrade to the stair.