Rubbing House is a Grade II listed building in the Yorkshire Dales National Park local planning authority area, England. First listed on 24 January 1986. Stable.
Rubbing House
- WRENN ID
- tenth-gravel-onyx
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Yorkshire Dales National Park
- Constituency
- Richmond and Northallerton MP: Rishi Sunak (Con)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 24 January 1986
- Type
- Stable
- Address
- Rubbing House, Common Lane, West Witton, North Yorkshire
- OS grid reference
- SE 078 874
- Coordinates
- 54.28307, -1.88143
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
Rubbing House is a late 18th-century structure located on the north side of Common Lane in West Witton. It is built from rubble with a stone slate roof and is a single storey with four bays, although the fifth bay has collapsed. The building features four tall door openings, which are possibly high enough for a horse and rider to enter. Inside, there are iron rings set into the walls of each room for tying horses. In the 18th century, it was believed beneficial to wrap horses well after training on the nearby gallops on Middleham High Moor to make them sweat, and then they would be rubbed down, giving the building its name. Rubbing House is a rare surviving example of its type and serves as an important link to the development of horse-breeding and training traditions in the Middleham area during the 18th century, which remains a significant industry in the region.
Local climate
Rubbing House sits in a wetter-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 990 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 79% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 66% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 57 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 97% of listed buildings. Of these, 35 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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