Stable Block Adjoining West Molland Barton To North West

Stable block, dated 1723. Minor alterations were made in the 20th century. The building is constructed of roughly squared and coursed sandstone, with render to the rear wall around the pigeon nesting holes. The right-hand gable end has 20th-century cement render. It has a gable-ended roof covered in Welsh slate. The plan comprises a stable range with a loft above, facing north, with a carriageway at the left-hand end leading to a courtyard at the rear. Accommodation for a coachman and grooms is to the left of the carriageway, marked by a straight joint to the left of a door, possibly indicating evidence of a former wider opening. The building is two storeys high.

The front elevation is asymmetrical, featuring a small square wooden bellcote with a pyramidal metal cap above the carriageway on the left. A loft doorway is off-centre to the right, with a boarded door and a heavily-moulded wooden frame. The underside of the top piece of the frame has two mortices alternating with three round holes, suggesting it was formerly a window. There are two roughly centrally placed 20th-century top-opening metal casements in original openings, flanked by a central 20th-century stable door, also likely in an original opening. A metal casement sits to the left, in an original opening, with a dressed stone flat-arched head. Boarded double doors stand to the right, also in an original opening, with a wooden lintel and a straight joint to the left suggests an earlier, wider opening. A blocked window with a dressed stone flat-arched head is between the first and second windows from the left. A carved square datestone is situated above the double doors to the left, bearing a Courtenay family mark (a winged-head motif above a “JC/RS. IS/1723” inscription).

The rear has three late 20th-century top-hung metal casements in original openings, with stone flat arches and wooden lintels. The carriageway is on the right, with a wooden lintel and three tiers of L-shaped pigeon nesting holes in the loft.

The interior features chamfered cross beams, although the joists have been replaced in the 20th century. A putative coachman’s and groom’s accommodation is to the left of the carriage entrance, with a corner fireplace in the ground floor room, which is now a tack room. The loft was not inspected during the survey in August 1987.