Stable Block of Middleton Hall

Cadw's description

Location

About 200m NW of the Great Glass House of the National Botanic Garden. The site is on the axis of Trawscoed, the building which was a service wing of Middleton Hall, and its walled domestic yard. The rear yard is closed by a later stable block.

History

Middleton Hall stables were built to the design of S P Cockerell, the architect of the Hall. The Hall was completed in 1795 and the stables are probably contemporary. The service yard of the Hall and the stables were planned on one axis so that it was said to be possible to see from the Hall to the foaling yard behind the stables. A second rear stable building parallel to the original stables was added by 1853 on the same axis, with a little extension dated 1870.
Middleton Hall was ruined by fire in 1931 and demolished in 1951. The stables are much restored and are currently in use as administrative offices for the National Botanic Garden.

Exterior

Two-storey stable block of symmetrical layout in neo-Classical style with a higher pedimented centrepiece over the entrance. There is a crosswing at each end, projecting slightly to the front but boldly to the rear. At the rear of the main block is a lean-to roof on an arcade from wing to wing. Rendered and whitened stonework, low-pitch slate roofs with metal ridges, two brickwork chimneys near the join with each wing and a single chimney at the rear of each wing. The front elevation is a careful architectural composition of five units. Small high pediment over the entrance arch, set forward from, and above, two half-pediments. The latter are the forward returns of the main roof. The cross-wings are hip-roofed. The central carriage arch is round-headed with boldly outbanded voussoirs and quoins and an impost on the line of a bold string-course carried around the building. This incorporates the flat-arch heads of windows beneath the half-pediments. At the top of the entrance arch over its keystone is another string course, merging with the cornices of the half-pediments. Above this on the centreline is a blank panel and above the cornice of the top pediment are ten pigeonholes. The fenestration is much altered, but there are three remaining circular windows and three 16-pane sash-windows at front, and double casements above. Four-window side elevations with 12-pane sash windows to ground floor, and triple casements to first floor. Five low-elliptical arcade arches at rear, standing on bold square imposts aligned with the string course. The rear ends of the crosswings have two-storey blind arches.

Reason for designation

Listed as a stable block of the Regency period and a design by a leading architect, S P Cockerell.