NHER 43171 (Building record) - Ferry Lane Garages, Ferry Lane

June 1972. Listed, Grade II.
Listing Description:
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 20th century has resulted in the biggest change to the building since the demolition of one end in the 19th century, 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 19th century. No stall dividers survive anywhere. The roof over the row is of principal rafters with collars and 2 tiers of butt purlins.
Information from (S1).

Before 29 November 2003. Desk-based Assessment.
Archaeological assessment undertaken on proposal to convert existing garages on Ferry Lane to commercial purposes as offices.
See report (S2) for further details.
J. Allen (NLA), 6 February 2006.

These garages are part of a brick stable block dating to around 1790. This was constructed on the site of the medieval canal which linked the watergate to the cathedral, presumably to transport the stone required for the construction and repair of the cathedral. It is thought that this was filled in around 1780.
R. Fillery-Travis (NLA), 16th April 2007.

February 2007. Application to upgrade listing.
A proposal to upgrade the listing of the range to grade II* was submitted but rejected.
See (S3).
S. Howard (HES), 25 October 2011.