Drawing 27 shows each exterior front of the stables and the east and west court-facing elevations. The south front has the projecting arched entrance building flanked by two-storey bays and between single-storey ends. The arches flanking the entrance have Diocletian windows in the crowns. The arched entrance range is divided horizontally by string courses and crowned by the round-arched tower (a clock is omitted in this drawing). The tower measures approximately 46 feet 8 inches tall, about 5 feet less than the earlier design shown in drawing 24.

The north elevation has eleven bays, each having a round-headed arch with a Diocletian window. These windows light the ride within that spans the entire width of the building. The inscription indicates that the north front faces 'the lawn'.

The ground and first floor plans (drawing 28 recto and verso) show a layout and size as in the January design (drawings 19 and 20) but the north-south axis is made more prominent by the inclusion of a ten foot-wide passage from the stable court to the ride at the north end of the building. A staircase is not shown. The fourteen stalls at the north range are labelled as 'hunters stables'. Seven coach horse stalls are on the east side of the stable court and five hack hores stalls are in the west (a hack, ie hackney, horse is used for ordinary riding on the road, 'as distinguished from cross-country, military, or other special riding' (Oxford English Dictionary)). The stables have a capacity for three coaches. Hay is stored in the corners of the building.

The drainage is included in the first floor plan of the stables (drawing 28 verso) and the ground floor plan (drawing 29). Pipes from all four ranges lead to a 30 foot long cesspool in the centre of the court, which in turn is drained through pipes leading beneath the building to the north and south.

The ground floor plan includes a 'loose stable', an increasingly popular inclusion in stables design in the nineteenth century but 'by no means standard' in the late 18th century (G. Worsley, p. 186). Soane included loose boxes in his stables designs at Mulgrave Castle (q.v.) and Shotesham (q.v.), as well as Tyringham Hall and Tendring Hall.

The Diocletian window set high up in the wall provided optimal ventilation for stables and was promoted by 18th century theorists on stable designs (G. Worsley, p. 188).

G. Worsley, The British Stable, 2004, pp. 185-8.

Group

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