Machell Place

Machell Place

Racehorse trainer's house, built circa 1850 as a pair of semi-detached houses and converted to a single dwelling with enlargements in 1884 by W.C. Manning. Late 20th-century alterations have been made.

The building is constructed in red brick with stone dressings and displays a picturesque Tudor Gothic style. The roofs are gabled with fish-scale slate tiles, ceramic ridge tiles, and pierced and scalloped bargeboards. Hipped dormers are present, along with a large central brick ridge stack and stacks serving rear wings.

The plan comprises the original mirror-image pair of semi-detached houses, each with a rear wing, remodelled internally as a single house with a later rear addition.

The exterior is two storeys with a symmetrical front. An offset stone plinth runs along the base, and stone quoins mark slightly projecting cross-gabled wings on either side. On the ground floor, adjacent to each wing, are blocked openings to the recessed porches of the former semi-detached houses. These are filled with brick beneath stone Tudor arches supported on corbels. Each infilled opening is flanked by a slender buttress with two stone-capped offsets. A similar buttress rises centrally on the front. To the right of the central buttress, an original window opening was replaced in 1884 with a stone-framed Tudor arched entrance doorway. The door is panelled with leaded light glazing in the upper half, sheltered by a timber gabled hood supported on brackets with pierced and scalloped bargeboards. To the left of the buttresses and at the end of each wing are stone-framed window openings.

On the first floor, two slightly projecting oriels in moulded stone occupy the centre, with corbelled frames, gables featuring scalloped bargeboards, and ceramic finials. Stone-framed window openings appear in the front of each oriel and at the end of each wing. Above each former porch is a narrow window opening that rises into a hipped dormer with an ornamental metal finial. Tudor relieving arches sit above each window. The sides and rears of the cross-gabled wings on both floors contain similar stone-framed windows.

A late 19th-century extension extends to the rear with three cross gables bearing plain bargeboards. Both floors feature plain window openings with segmental arched heads. Around 1980, all window openings were refitted with UPVC side-hung sashes.

The house was originally called Chetwynd Place. It was built circa 1850 in picturesque Tudor Gothic style for James (Jem) Robinson, a jockey and trainer. Between approximately 1860 and 1880, at least one and possibly both houses of the original semi-detached pair were owned by Sir John Astley, a prominent racehorse owner, gambler, and Steward of the Jockey Club who founded the Astley Institute, a club for the stable lads of Newmarket. The pair was subsequently converted to a single house and enlarged in 1884 by W.C. Manning for Charles (Charlie) Wood, a trainer, to serve as the trainer's house for Chetwynd Place Stables located to the rear. In the late 19th century, following purchase by Captain J.O. Machell, a prominent racehorse owner and manager, the property and stables were renamed Machell Place and Machell Place Stables respectively.

The house is well detailed and forms a significant group with the grand and extensive stables to its rear.