Range Of Stables In East Corner Of Front Paddock Bordering Road At Shalfleet Stables

Range of stables in east corner of front paddock bordering road at Shalfleet Stables, Newmarket.

A detached range of stables positioned at the south east end of racehorse training stables, built circa 1885 for Captain J.O. Machell, racehorse manager and owner. The structure was probably an isolation block within the former Bedford Lodge Stables complex (also known as Highfield Stables, Bury Road).

The range is constructed in gault brick with dressed stone lintels and sills, finished with half-hipped and hipped slate roofs featuring a cross-gable over the loft door, boxed eaves, and barge boards to the gable verges.

The plan is symmetrical and contains five cage boxes with a hay loft in the central block. At each end is a slightly recessed single-storey wing: a tack room on the left and a feed room on the right.

The exterior comprises a two-storey central block with a half-hipped roof, flanked by single-storey wings each with a lean-to hipped roof. The symmetrical front shows the central block in five bays with quadrant corners partly masked by the adjoining wings. An offset plinth runs across the facade. In the second and fourth bays are doorways with transom-lights and beaded-edge vertical board doors. The central bay and each end bay contain double casements with glazing bars (4 by 3 panes) and transom-lights with a central vertical glazing bar. All doors and casements sit in recessed timber frames within openings featuring identical stone lintels set flush at the same height, with stopped chamfers applied to both lintels and door jambs. The front of each wing has a slightly wider and lower doorway with door and transom-light details identical to those in the central block. On the first floor, a central loft doorway and door with similar detailing has its head raised into the cross-gable; at the apex of the gable, barge boards terminate in a timber spike finial with drop. On each side of the loft doorway stands a lunette window with a central vertical glazing bar, set within a frame recessed in a semi-circular brick arched opening. All windows have projecting stone sills. A decorative wrought iron gas lamp bracket is mounted on the corner of the right-hand wing.

The interior features an access passage serving the caged loose boxes. The front of each box is positioned between timber posts with a fixed section flanked by a top-hung sliding door on an iron runner. The fixed sections and doors are composed of vertical boarded panels below with grilles featuring vertical iron rods above. Over each front hangs a screen of closely set timber balusters of square section with elaborately moulded profile. Partitions between boxes are faced with vertical boarding, and the passage walls are finished with a dado of vertical boarding to two-thirds of the height and plaster above. A plastered ceiling and patent tile floors complete the interior finish. At the left-hand end of the passage, access to the loft is gained through a manhole reached by ladder. The loft was not inspected.

Shalfleet Stables were formed in 1963 through the sub-division of larger racing stables of the same name, which had previously been part of Bedford Lodge Stables. The other portion of Bedford Lodge Stables was re-named Highfield Stables.

This range of stables survives as a good example of an unaltered late 19th-century stable range and most probably represents a specialised isolation block.