Building record BCC 138 - Outbuildings at Ingate House, London Road

Ingate House is a well preserved red-brick and pantiled late Georgian house of circa 1800. When first built on what appears to have been a medieval green it lay in open countryside. At the time of the tithe survey in 1841 the land was leased separately from the house with a farm yard including a large barn on the east. By the 1880s the land had been lost to the railway and new housing, and the barn had disappeared. The farm yard is now occupied by a modern care home, and the red-brick and pantiled range of outbuildings to the south of the house now provides the site’s only link with its agricultural past. The range consists of a late-18th or early-19th century stable on the north (which faced east towards the demolished barn), a slightly later central shed that has been much altered but almost certainly formed a domestic stable entered from the house on the west, and a Victorian greenhouse of circa 1870 to the south. The northern stable has been converted into a garage by inserting a new entrance in its side wall, but is contemporary with the house and contains an identical roof of staggered butt-purlins. Its original layout was typical of its period with a central door flanked by windows, but its structure is unusual in that its roof was aligned on its shorter axis and its width was increased by integral lean-tos on both sides. This odd arrangement creates a picturesque facade with a weatherboarded gable above the entrance. The central stable was re-roofed in the 20th century but retains a characterful 19th century boarded partition with a horizontal sliding shutter, while the greenhouse – although repaired – remains largely as built (S1)