Stables, Rendcomb College

Stables at Rendcomb College

This stable complex was built in 1867, as dated below the clock on the south side of the tower, and was designed by P.C. Hardwick for F.H. Goldsmid. The building is executed in French Renaissance style, with some twentieth-century rebuilding undertaken in the same style.

The structure is constructed of ashlar with red tile roof tiling and ashlar chimney stacks. It has a rectangular plan arranged around a large stableyard with opposing entrances on the north and south sides. The building is 1½ storeys and single storey in height.

The symmetrical roadside front features a single stage tower positioned over the entrance. The main façade is arranged as 1:2:tower:2:1 windows with gables projecting forwards slightly to the right and left. The gables display alternately punch-dressed and plain rusticated quoins. The ground floor of the projecting gables contains twelve-pane sashes within moulded lugged architraves and moulded keystones. To the right of the left-hand gable is a twentieth-century three-light casement with concrete lintel. Cross-mullioned casements in the form of half dormers with triangular pediments are positioned on the first floor.

The central entrance consists of double panelled doors (ramped down at the centre) within a tall moulded round-headed archway. The keystone position is occupied by a horse's head, flanked by festoons. Pilasters with alternate plain and punch-dressed rustication stand on either side, with a single patera above each pilaster. A triangular pediment crowns the composition.

The tower itself features rusticated quoins. Clocks are positioned on the north and south faces, with foliate decoration on the spandrels and broken segmental pediments with a bust at the top and foliate decoration within the pediment. Two-light casements with moulded and lugged architraves and segmental pediments matching those over the clocks are set into the side walls of the tower. A steeply-pitched hipped roof splays out slightly at the bottom with oval Baroque-shaped lucarnes on each side. An octagonal cupola with weathervane crowns the apex.

The south face of the tower and entrance below matches the roadside front, featuring two-light casements with horizontal glazing bars on either side, three cross-mullioned half dormers with triangular pediments to the first floor, four small Baroque-shaped lucarnes to the roof either side of the tower, and part-glazed doors to the ground floor.

The returns contain two almost Tudor-arched double-width openings with moulded keystones, now infilled with planks containing single-width plank doorways and windows. Single-light half dormers are set into the first floor.

The southern entrance to the stableyard is similar to the northern entrance but incorporates a moulded keystone with wheat ear decoration in the spandrels and a triangular pediment. Two pairs of segmental-headed sashes with moulded and lugged architraves with moulded keystones are divided by pilasters with alternate punch-dressed and plain rustications.

The inner side of the stableyard features two almost Tudor-arched double-width openings with part-glazed plank infill, part-glazed doors and tall two-light casements with horizontal glazing bars. Hipped roofing with decorative zig-zags and bands of tiling with sprocketed ridge tiling completes the composition.