Description

TG 2308 NE THE CLOSE
17/194
Range of Stabling
5.6.72 west of No. 25.
GV II
Row of former stabling and coach houses, now a series of garages with a former school changing room at one end, and a converted flat at the other, and storage over the garages. Early C19. Red brick. Pantile roof. 3 stacks to right inserted later. 2 storeys. 13 casements or boarded loft doors at first floor. 10 2-leaf doors to former stables and coach houses, plus one blocked opening to left. 6 casement windows at ground floor plus 4 C20 casements to left, one in blocked former original stable doorway. Original stable doorway to far right, now leading to flat. Single-storey bays at each end also with 2-leaf doors. The roof is divided into 5 by gable walls. To rear are 5 original doorways (3 blocked), a C20 open verandah extension at 1st floor and other small openings.
The conversion to garages in the C20 has resulted in the biggest change to the building since the demolition of one end in the C19, because the doors to the stables were originally single doorways not double ones. The original arrangement can be seen to the far left of the building in the part which is a former changing room because the single stable door entrance (now blocked and with a window) survives with a window either side. The original arrangement would have been one of an alternating arrangement of narrow stable door and the wider coach house door all the way along the front.

INTERIOR.
The present garage space of No.10 shows most clearly what the original stable arrangement was because it retains the hay racks on the right hand wall set into brick indented roundels with the remains of the wooden panelling on the wall below. Here are the signs of where the dividing walls of the stalls abutted the panelling. In the floor can be seen where the posts for the dividing panels stood.Where the line of stall doors would have been, there is dip or gulley in the paviours to drain away liquid which runs from the main front wall towards the back (no doubt originally draining out towards the rear). The other garages have fewer surviving interior features in the former stables than this one though there is an inserted fireplace in one tack room and some matchboard panelling in another and in a coach house, all of which date from later in the C19. No stall dividers survive anywhere. The roof over the row is of principal rafters with collars and 2 tiers of butt purlins.

HISTORY:
This row of stables and coach houses was built in the early C19 (between 1790 and 1830 and probably after 1814) to provide facilities for those who were living in the Cathedral close at Norwich. It appears that a creke or canal constructed in medieval times which led up towards the cathedral was filled-in in the late C18 and that this area of ground was used for the stabling. The row was originally longer but the final section to the east was demolished, probably in the C19. 2 single-storey outbuildings were subsequently added to the ends. The row originally had various sets of a coach house, stable for 3 horses and a tack room with a ladder to a hay loft above. 2 sets were bigger with 2 coach houses stables, for six horses and tack rooms. The more-or-less square stable room was divided by wooden partitions into 3 stalls which were set at right angles to the front and these opened out into a passage which went from front to back of the building.

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE
This a row of early C19 red brick stabling built by the Dean and Chapter of Norwich Cathedral to provide coach house and stabling facilities for their tenants in the Cathedral close. It was built between 1790 and 1830 and probably after 1814. Although one end was apparently truncated in the C19 and although the rest converted into garages in the C20, resulting in the widening of the original stable doors and the loss of the stalls in the stables, the row otherwise survives sufficiently intact and forms part of a significant group of historic buildings around the Cathedral.

SOURCES
Jonathon Cooke, Historic Building Surveys Ltd. Report, 2002.

Listing NGR: TG2380408776

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26303225

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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