Stabling and Cobbled Pavements adjoining Godolphin House

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SW 63 SW 4/50

BREAGE GODOLPHIN Stabling and Cobbled Pavements adjoining Godolphin House

GV I

Stables with fodder store at Godolphin House (qv). Circa early C17 or possibly late C16. Granite moorstone rubble with granite dressings; scantle slate roof with re-used C17 and C18 crested clay ridge tiles; coped gable end with kneelers and finial to west and abutment with house to east. Long range with access only from front (north) face. Ground floor has two long equal compartments flanking small central compartment. Layout of first floor similar with access lobby at intermediate level over centre compartment.

Overall symmetrical front each half of which is also symmetrical about its doorway. Small central basket-arched doorway to the first floor, which is placed half way up and approached via stone steps (re-used). It is set within four small single light windows, two to each floor lighting the central compartments. To either side identical arrangements of larger four-centred chamfered doorways at ground floor level flanked by three-light mullioned windows. Above the doorways, late C19 loading doors replacing two-light mullioned windows similar to those which still flank them, all equally spaced along the range (far right hand mullion missing). Pigeon holes below eaves. The gable (west) end has central first floor single light window. Rear wall west half has one small ventilator window, range of bee boles and pigeon holes at eaves. East half rebuilt in C19: four dormer windows introduced 1950s.

Interior : The roof retains some trusses with halved lap-dovetail jointed collars and threaded purlins. Central lobby has framed partitions each with central chamfered square-headed doorway approached by a few steps (C19 replacements), (this secure and central first floor compartment, or the one below it, must have been the tack room). Floor structure at west end has chamfered cross beams with runnout stops, lesser chamfered axial beams and joists all visible. The floor to the east has chamfered cross beams only, and could be a little later. In all three ground floor compartments there are cobbled floors with drainage runnels. No early fittings survive, though some late C19 loose box divisions exist at the west end.

There is a wide slightly raised cobbled pavement with a granite kerb along the front of the building and returning at a right angle along the west side of the east forecourt wall reduced to a narrow strip at the north end (qv forecourt walls). This is the finest stable of its period existing in the county. An engraving in William Borlase's Antiquities and Natural History of the County of Cornwall could suggest a roof of thatch or shingles in the mid C18.

Listing NGR: SW6007931842