Stables With Loft And Engine House At Cross House Farm

A stable block with a loft and an integral horse engine house, dating to circa 1800 or earlier, with significant remodelling in circa 1840. The building is constructed of English and Flemish bond red brick, with remnants of earlier clunch and flint rubble at the west end. The roofs are tiled with pantiles, featuring gabled ends, with a hipped roof over the engine house. The plan comprises a main range of two large, equal-sized stables, a tack room, a lobby, and a staircase in the centre, with a large loft above, divided into three bays corresponding to the ground floor bays. Smaller, single-storey stables were added at both ends.

The symmetrical south front features a stable door on either side, flanked by windows, with a small loft door above, all set within segmental brick arches. Projecting at the centre is a semi-octagonal engine house with a low, hipped roof and small openings high in the walls. The rear (north) elevation has two loft doors and a central window on the first floor, and a small window at the centre of the ground floor. The south end has ventilation holes in the gable, and a reset tablet inscribed 'E.S. 1800'. The north end contains a ventilation slit and a blocked window in the gable.

Inside, the stables retain mangers and some stall partitions, with saddle racks on the walls. The lobby features a wheel-pit and shaft housing, along with stairs leading to the loft. The loft has three bays and two large round arches in the brick partitions (one with a sliding door). The engine house contains original circa 1840 machinery, including a low-level cast-iron spur wheel, draw-poles for four horses topped with a wooden platform and a driver's stool, and a drive shaft that leads to a belt wheel in a pit, then up to a wheel in the loft, likely used to drive a chaff-cutting machine for producing feed for the working horses below. The roof structure consists of tie-beam and collar trusses with iron ties and through purlins. Cross House Farm was part of an estate owned by the Earl of Spencer.