Stables

635-1/0/10130 BALFE STREET 06-NOV-01 55 Stables

GV II

Stables. C.1895 for the London General Omnibus Company. Designer unknown. Stock brick and white glazed brick, concrete floors and ramped stairs, steel frame, timber trussed roofs; roof covering (recently renewed) not seen. Entry punched through a Georgian end-or-terrace house; sloping carriageway paved with granite setts, bollards and kerbs. Inner yard roofed over with concrete floor to stabling above, carried on a steel frame: single round column to north-east corner, otherwise open; supervisor's booth in south-west corner; ramped stair along south side. Beyond yard to west is the ground floor stable: steel frame with I-section stanchions and supporting floor of concrete, with grooved, cobble-like surface of paviours; sloping skylight along south and west sides, remains of forge at south-west corner with rails set onto floor related to the former furnace. Ramped stair, L-shaped, with shallow, much-repaired, grooved concrete steps. First floor has stabling at two levels: a large, lower area at west and a smaller, higher area to east. Trap-door opposite top of stairs. West stable has an open queen-post trussed roof with glazed lantern along its entire length; trevises either side of ramp leading up to stable bear the letters LGOCo, for London General Omnibus Company; vertical boarding with upswept rail either side of ramp. East stable is smaller but similar, with a pair of similar trevises with boarding flanking ramp. HISTORY: this was built for the London General Omnibus Company, and could accommodate 79 horses. As heavy draft horses used to working in teams, they could be stabled communally and did not need partitions. At its peak in 1900 the LGOC owned nearly 17,000 horses; the company went bankrupt in 1912. This complex is of special interest as a well-preserved commercial stable building, indicating the importance of horses in pre-20th century city life. It is of further interest on account of its steel frame, and is the only example so far identified of such a technique being used for this type of building.

Source: Anne Upson, 'Stables to rear 55 Balfe Street', report by AOC Archaeology Group, 2001.