Highfield Stables

Racehorse training stables on the north-west side of Bury Road in Newmarket, originally part of Bedford Lodge (now Bedford Lodge Hotel). The main stable range was built in 1864 for Joseph Joel Dawson, a racehorse trainer, with later 19th-century stable ranges added to the rear. A small part of the stables now functions as an outbuilding of the hotel.

The stables are constructed in gault brick laid in Flemish bond with contrasting red brick dressings and stone details. The roofs are slate hipped, with lead on the clock tower. The design is in the Italianate style.

The layout comprises a long main range with a central cross-passage leading to a stable yard. At the left-hand end of the yard are ranges of stables. The central section of the main range contains four cage boxes on each side of the cross-passage with a loft storey above, flanked by slightly recessed single-storey wings. Each wing originally contained five loose boxes, though three boxes at the end of the left-hand wing are now part of the hotel outbuilding. To the rear of the main range, facing into the stable yard, is a lean-to range with four loose boxes and a tack room on the left, and opposite a range of loose boxes with an added range of cage boxes at the rear.

The exterior of the main two-storey range with single-storey wings has a symmetrical front with a projecting central bay. A tall clock tower in two stages rises above, featuring a semi-circular archway with a timber doorcase and double doors with radiating lights in the heads. Above a stone cornice sits the clock tower with quoin strips in alternating blocks of red and gault brickwork. The lower stage is capped by a moulded stone cornice, and the upper stage is crowned by a pyramidal roof with eaves supported by timber brackets. An ornate wrought iron weather vane sits on the roof apex. The lower stage displays an apron panel framing a metal plaque inscribed with the date and initials JD flanking an escutcheon in relief, with an arched sash above. The upper stage has similar arched sashes on each side, with circular openings in red brick above each sash, set with a raised tripartite keyblock and keystone. These circular openings contain clock faces to the front and rear and timber louvres on the sides.

On each side, the two-storey front has a brick eaves cornice and raised quoin strips at each end. Each side features a central doorway framed by rusticated brick pilasters with brick caps and a brick segmental arch springing from a moulded brick string course at first-floor level. Within each doorway is a tall rectangular overlight and a vertical boarded stable door, flanked on either side by 3-over-3 sashes. Above is a horizontal sash with glazing bars. All sashes sit in openings with cambered brick-arched heads and projecting stone sills. The single-storey wing to the right has five stable doors to loose boxes with overlights, while the wing to the left has two stable doors in similar openings. The stable ranges facing the yard have stable doors with horizontal sliding sashes in overlights in openings with cambered heads and metal roof vents.

In the interior, the passages to the cage boxes are accessed from outer doorways and from doorways in the side walls of the cross-passage. The cage boxes have boarded fronts and doors with iron grilles above, set between timber posts supporting lateral first-floor beams, with timber partitions lined with hoop-iron strapping. In the ranges facing the yard at the rear, partitions between boxes have fumed timber balustrading at high level.

The site has a notable history. Bedford Lodge and its original stables were built for the fifth and sixth Dukes of Bedford and sold in 1861 by the seventh duke. Sir Joseph Hawley purchased the estate and subsequently sold it to William Butler, the Duke of Bedford's former trainer. Butler demolished the original stabling and sold the Lodge to Joseph Dawson, who built the main stable range adjoining it. Dawson was an important and innovative trainer who developed the training of two-year-old horses for racing and introduced new feeding methods with considerable success. Following Dawson's death in 1880, the Lodge and Stables were purchased by Captain J. O. Machell, a racehorse manager, who leased them in 1884 to George Alexander Baird, a notorious gentleman jockey and owner. After Baird's death in 1893, the property was sold to the Earl of Derby. When Bedford Lodge became a hotel in the 1920s, trainer Harvey Leader renamed the stables 'Shalfleet'. In 1960 he formed new stables at the north-east end of the site, retaining the name Shalfleet Stables, while his former accommodation was renamed Highfield Stables when occupied by trainer Fred Winter in 1963.