Building record 4639/13/2 - Coach House, Mortimers

The coach house was built in ironstone between 1885 and 1899 and comprises a carriage house with adjacent stables, an upper storey hayloft and an abutting brick tool shed. It is roofed in slate with decorative ceramic ridge tiles and stone finial.

{1} The coach house was built in ironstone between 1885 and 1899 and comprises a carriage house with adjacent stables, an upper storey hayloft and an abutting brick tool shed. It is roofed in slate with decorative ceramic ridge tiles and stone finial. There are internal brick jambs to the doors and windows, brick floors with central drains in the stables and brick partition walls. The doors and windows and their fittings are probably original apart from two later locks inserted on the two stable doors. The rainwater goods and electric light are mid 20th century.
The coach house is a simple rectangular structure, aligned east to west, 14m long by 5.5m wide, built in stone with brick detailing and brick partition walls. It is a two-storey building with the ground floor comprising a carriage house and two adjoining stables immediately to the east, with a separately accessed stable, perhaps serving as a loose box, at the eastern end of the building. A brick tool shed abuts the east elevation. The hayloft on the first floor is accessed by a loft ladder and is subdivided by partition walls, with a separate room over the carriage house. The northern elevation is bonded with the property boundary wall on the west side, but to the east where the boundary wall abuts the elevation, and both the main building and the boundary wall are abutted by a brick tool shed. The north wall of the building on the inside is very uneven and undulating, while the front wall shows fewer irregularities in its build. This accounts for the recorded variations in the room lengths, which can vary by up to 120mm within a single room, and has an extreme range of 4.70-5.12m, depending on where the measurement were taken.
Historic mapping shows that the coach house was built between 1885 and 1900. On the 25inch OS map of 1885 there is a much smaller building occupying part of the footprint of the coach house, and to the east there is a substantial building range which might have included stables. By 1900, the building range and the small building had gone, to be replaced by the coach house and tool shed.
This was a standard small late Victorian coach house with tackroom and stables attached to a house of significant social standing. The building is most likely all original, dating to its last period of use as a coach house and stables. It does not appear to have been converted to a garage, presumably because of restricted access. Evidence suggests that renovations were taking place during the middle decades of the 20th century, indicating tha the building was still in use, even if not for its original purpose.
Source contains detailed internal and external descriptions of the building, plans and drawings.

<1> Chapman P.; Chapman A., 2011, Building Recording of a Coach House at Mortimers, 33 Rectory Lane, Milton Malsor, Northamptonshire. September 2011, (checked) (Report). SNN107721.

<2> Ordnance Survey, 1885, First Edition Ordnance Survey Map (51:12), (unchecked) (Map). SNN109638.

<3> Ordnance Survey, 1900, Second Edition OS 25 Inch Mapping Series (51.08), (unchecked) (Map). SNN109639.

Record last edited

Mar 25 2020 10:51AM