Overlooked Britain What Delaval brought to the stable

Sir Francis Delaval added an equine palace to Seaton Delaval, Vanbrugh’s baroque jewel

- Lucinda Lambton

The expression ‘stone cold’ comes chillingly and beautifully to life, even in summer, with the stables of Seaton Delaval in Northumberland. Feeling frozen to the marrow of your bones, you are surrounded by stone on all sides, to outstandingly noble effect.

It stands on the bleak windswept flatlands hard by the North Sea. Pity the photographer who took the picture opposite – ie me. I was chilled to the very roots of my boots when I took it.

Every centimetre of the building is made of cold, grey stone: the walls of finely dressed stone, the three broad, segmental transverse arches – all ashlar – the softly bulging floors, the stall partitions, the arched mangers and the hay racks.

The stables are of a monumental dignity worthy of attribution to Sir John Vanbrugh, the architect of the great house these stables were built to serve. In fact, the stables date from a full 50 years later. Vanbrugh’s Palladian, laced through-with-baroque masterstroke of Seaton Delaval Hall was started in 1718; the stables were begun in 1768.

Admiral George Delaval had commissioned Vanbrugh to design the house, writing that the architect was ‘not disposed to starve the design at all’. Together, they forged forth with a forceful and aggressive masterpiece. The stables were, it would seem, the work of Delaval’s dashing great-nephew, Sir Francis Delaval.