Implement Shed, Stable Block, Callendar House, Callendar Park, Falkirk

Implement Shed, Stable Block, Callendar House, Callendar Park, Falkirk

A range of early to later 19th-century stable and estate buildings arranged informally around a cobbled yard on rising ground to the north, enclosed by boundary walls to the east and southwest and bordered to the southeast by an earlier mid-18th-century stable court.

The principal structure is an early to mid-19th-century stable block to the northwest, a 2-storey rectangular building of 10 bays with 5 wide arcaded bays at ground floor level. It is built of coursed and tooled cream ashlar sandstone on its principal southeast elevation, with a base course, plain string course, narrow strip quoins and plain margins. The southeast elevation features a central segmental-arched, keystoned carriage opening with projecting ashlar imposts and 2-leaf boarded timber doors. To either side are narrower segmental archways; the far left-hand bay contains coursed ashlar infill with a single rectangular window to its centre. The arch to the penultimate bay on the left is divided by an ashlar pier with single doorways to either side fitted with diamond-paned glazed fanlights. Timber boarded screens infill both arches to the right of centre, each with a doorway inset to the left and single diamond-paned glazing to the right. Eight narrow pointed-arch windows light the first floor between two wider pointed-arched windows to the outer bays. The northwest elevation comprises 5 bays at single storey level on higher ground at first floor level, with a central doorway offset to the left and narrow rectangular windows to the flanking bays. The interior retains some stalls with timber-boarded partitions and large ball-finialled newels, with an open timber ceiling. The upper floor has boarded timber flooring and open timber ceiling.

Adjacent to the northeast is a 2-storey, 3-stage, square-plan dovecot and former kennel dated 1828, built of sandstone rubble with prominent crenellated parapet and continuous deep string course between the first and second stages. The northeast entrance elevation has a low central doorway into the kennels at the first stage, with an enlarged window above providing access to the dovecot (accessed by ladder only). A central blind window occupies the third stage, with a continuous cill-course forming an alighting ledge. The southwest elevation contains 3 small barred openings at the first stage, a window to the third stage, and 4 arched flight holes to the base of a blind opening with 3 further holes above separated by a thin stone alighting ledge. The southeast elevation shows the stable block adjoining at first stage level, with a single central window to the third stage. The northwest elevation has 3 small barred openings at the first stage and a single central blind window to the third stage. Internally, the first stage accommodates former kennels with a central passage flanked by cells to left and right. The dovecot above is lined with stone nesting boxes.

To the southwest a later 19th-century L-plan, single-storey addition adjoins the main stable block.

A later 19th-century curved single-storey stable block of 11 bays occupies the northeast side of the yard, built of tooled sandstone rubble with long and short rubble-work to openings and plain raised strip margins. The south entrance elevation features alternate doorways and single diamond-paned windows to the first 9 bays, with timber-boarded, two-section stable doors. An adjoining advanced 2-bay gabled block to the right exhibits an original wall to ground floor cill level with later coursed concrete block above and 2 lying rectangular openings at the original wallhead level. The north rear elevation, built into the hillside, shows a single rubble course above ground level with a curved roof. The interior is now a single space (as of 2004), though it was previously divided into 5 stalls by wooden partitions, of which one timber beam remained in 2004. Walls are rendered; the roof structure comprises replacement exposed A-frame timber framing. Two low stone stalls in the adjoining bay to the right may have originally been a pig sty.

A tall single-storey, 7-bay implement shed stands to the southwest of the yard. It is built of coursed and tooled sandstone ashlar with random rubble to the rear and droved quoins. The northeast principal elevation features 6 regularly spaced cast-iron columns supporting a continuous timber eaves course with overhanging eaves and is open to the northwest. The southeast elevation has a single rectangular slit window to its centre.

The cobbled yard in front of the northwest and northeast stable blocks survives as small stone setts, though it was becoming submerged under earth and loose stone as of 2004.

Boundary walls of coped rubble enclose the yard to the south and east. Two-leaf cast-iron gates with spearhead finials occupy the eastern boundary; late 20th-century metal gates stand to the southwest.