Stables


This article was uploaded by Nicholas Cleak at 23:42 09 February 2008

The Stables were fairly intact in the late 1970’s with a wooden staircase in the centre entrance hall leading to an upper floor, the floorboards were perfectly smooth. The stables would house 5 horses in luxury and at the other end of the stables were areas for tending to horses such as changing shoes and grooming and showers in heated luxury from the coal fireplaces . The upper floor was a huge open area divided in two with the centre wooden staircase going to the one section and the external staircase at the end of the building going up to the other.

I saw Dart scores which were written on the first floor wooden panelled walls near the centre staircase dated early 1940’s , The RAF dog handling Personnel were based in these stables, but a few deliberate fires burned most of the wood away after the late 1980’s . Now the first floor no longer exists and beams have fallen into the stable bays. (NS006).

The racecourse end room used to house a generator which was once bolted on top of a raised plinth. (NS016)There are still two threaded studs sticking out of the concrete to screw a securing nut on. (NS017).

At the opposite end of the building is an enlarged entrance where perhaps a few carts would have stayed.

The remains of external stairs to the first floor can be seen by this entrance with some of the handrail still there. (NS011)
The Stables were very well finished with lots of care put into the design and construction. The stone work is mainly in very good condition. The bay grills are very ornate (NS009) and have wooden panel lined walls , the cast iron bay dividers have large acorn shapes on the poles at the back of the bays. (NS010) The five doors are very thick with substantial locks (NS007) and key numbers still hand written very professionally on the doors.

There are words on each of the doors under the key numbers but they are very faded now, the one easiest to read is “ANTI-GAS STORE” (NS005) .Another door read “ARMOURY” On the other doors only a few odd letters are readable. Presumably this added lettering was the RAF’s work.