Details
TL66SW
170/2/162
09-SEP-03
STETCHWORTH
NEWMARKET ROAD
(North side)
STABLE BLOCK TO EGERTON STUD
GV
II*
Stables built in 1891 for Lord Ellesmere and leased to Richard Marsh (monogram and dated stone plaque on central block). Red brick with applied timber frame decoration and Mansfield stone dressings. Plain tile roofs with patterned ridge tiles. Four red brick stacks. Single storey stable ranges enclosing large yard with two and three storey central block. South elevation of central block, three storey clock 'tower' and main entrance of three 'bays' with pilasters at each floor and three facade gables surmounted by a wooden bell turret and weather vane. Coved jetty to second floor with three three-light casement windows. Four three-light casement windows to first floor with stone plaque. Fluted Ionic pilasters to eliptical archway with boarded doors and over lights. Two flanking ground floor windows in segmental arches.
Wings of two storeys each with three segmental arched windows and three boarded doors, moulded brick string at first floor, three gabled dormer windows. Stable doors to single storey ranges with over lights in segmental brick arches, and galvanised metal louvres.
INTERIOR. Stables which have both loose and caged boxes have hoop-iron strapping to partitions, roof ventilation, bricked floors, mangers with boarded fronts and coloured tile backs. The use of red and grey tiles may refer to the Duke of Hamilton's racing colours since Richard Marsh trained the Duke's horses from 1876 until the Duke's death in 1895.
HISTORY. Egerton Stud is a very important example of a combined stud and racing stables and it also has important historical significance for its close connection with the Royal Family. The stud was rebuilt in 1891-3 for Lord Ellesmere as a lavish training establishment. In 1890 Lord Ellesmere's land agent proposed the conversion of Egerton House stud into the most modern training establishment in the country funded by the stud fees of the stallion Hampton. Before the remodelling Egerton had been a stud establishment and the development did not sacrifice this side so that the resulting establishment combined both stud farm and racing stables, the two parts being set slightly apart. The agent approached the prominent trainer Richard (Dick) Marsh (trainer to the Duke of Hamilton at nearby Lordship Farm since 1876) to see whether he was interested in tenanting such a property. Marsh moved in November 1892 with 54 horses. The owners included the Dukes of Hamilton and Devonshire. Marsh was offered the chance to train the Prince of Wales's horses and 8 arrived at the beginning of 1893. Two of the most famous horses to be trained at Egerton were the Prince's Persimmon, which won the Derby in 1896, and Diamond Jubilee, the triple crown winner of 1900. Royal horses continued to be trained at Egerton, under Marsh and his successor Willie Jarvis, until Jarvis's death in 1943, a total of half a century.
This stables quadrangle is the finest to survive in Newmarket from this period and is part of the very significant group with Egerton House (q.v.), the main lodge on the Newmarket Road (q.v.), and, to the north west, the stud farm (q.v.). These were all built by 1895, when the establishment was the subject of an article in Racing Illustrated. Not only is the whole on a lavish scale but also, except for the demolition some years ago of the secondary stable court, remarkably complete. It is also a rare combination of stud farm and racehorse training stables.
REFERENCES.
Plans and designs for stable block, unsigned, Egerton Stud
Estate Office.
Onslow, R., Headquarters: A History of Newmarket and its Racing, 1983, p.195-9.
Thompson, L., Newmarket from James I to the Present Day, 2000, pp.240-1, 251, 291-2.
VCH Vol.VI, p.174.
Racing Illustrated, No. 5, 1895.
Listing NGR: TL6078461319
