22204

 

II*  

Designated  

27/08/1999  

27/08/1999  

Golden Grove Stable Block  

 

Carmarthenshire  

Llanfihangel Aberbythych  

Carmarthen  

Golden Grove Park  

259624  

219809  

 

To the west of the service wing at Golden Grove, to which it is linked by yards and a covered way. Rubblestone enclosing wall at north, continuing the line of the terrace wall of the house.  

Domestic  

 

The stable block, designed by Sir Jeffry Wyatville, was the last domestic element to be constructed at Golden Grove for the first Earl Cawdor, following the mansion itself and its service wing. It was completed in 1834. The architect's drawings show the lofts on the south and west sides were for hay; that on the north side was an attic for stable servants, with a bedroom for a visitor's groom at the east end; the north-east corner building was a brewery, now converted to a boiler house, and the other three corner buildings were domestic accommodation.  

A stable block in neo-Tudor style, as the house, but simplified. The block is rectangular, about 45 by 30m with internal courtyard, linked by the coalyard and dairy yard walls and by a covered way to the service wing of Golden Grove. Three low ranges of one storey and an attic (the side towards the house is open except for low lean-to blocks against the corner buildings and a high wall with archway). Four corner buildings of two storeys. Hammer-dressed limestone masonry with ashlar details. Low-pitch slate roofs in graded courses, metal ridges. The main entrance is to the south. The entrance range has a central high four-centred archway in an ashlar gable with coped parapet. Simple gothic wrought iron gates. This gateway is flanked on either side by single storey ranges of three bays, defined by sloping topped buttresses; three-light mullion and transom windows to bays 1 and 2 nearer the archway and two single light transom windows in the outer bays; these ranges terminate in the two-storey corner blocks. The latter have gables to all four elevations and a stack at each extreme corner rising to a cluster of four diagonal chimneys. The west elevation has a central four-centred entrance without gable, and two dormer windows above the eaves. The north elevation has three dormer windows, the middle one broader and taller than the others and crowned by a chimney. The eaves of the low ranges both externally and towards the courtyard are on stone corbels. The majority of the ground-storey windows are of mullion and transom type with three lights; a few single or two-light windows. The upper windows in the corner blocks, facing to the exterior, are in each case three single lights without transom. The attic windows in the low ranges are above-eaves dormers in masonry with prominent moulded copings to their gables and double-corbelled skew-stones. The courtyard interior is similarly detailed, with high gabled entrance arch on the south side, and flanking bays with dormers in the roof. The yard-facing elevation of the north range has six four-centred coach-arches, all now filled. At each side of these is a four-centred archway between single light windows. Two dormer windows here (and two on the exterior elevation also) are larger than the others, with chimney stacks on their gable apexes. The yard-facing elevation of the west range includes a central through-eaves dormer with a six-hole columbarium. Attached to the west elevation is the dung yard, a semi-circular enclosure with a high rubble masonry wall. External gatepiers and wrought-iron gates similar to the gates of the main entrance.  

In the north range attic several servants' rooms survive, four with small firegrates built into the masonry beneath the dormer windows.  

A fine stable block and an essential component of the design of Golden Grove, combining formal symmetrical planning with neo-Tudor detailing.