Could one build a stable in a town centre for personal use or attached to a hotel / pub?

[infobleep]

If you lived in a town centre in the UK and had enough land, could you build a stable to keep a couple of horses and a carriage for personal use, or have planning laws changed to make such things no longer possible? Welfare laws may also have changed.

What about a hotel or pub, which might want to offer such a thing to recreate the past?

This is a purely hypertheical question but one that interests me as, although I don't ride horses, I enjoy collecting old guidebooks which occasionally make references to horses and carriages.

Rev Robert Cliff's Guide to South Wales, second edition revised by his son and published in 1848, has some good details on where to tether or stable your horse when travelling.

 

[DelW]

I see no reason why not, considering that the royal family and the army keep quite a few horses in stables in central London.

There are old coaching inns in many town centres which still have their stables buildings, although now used for other purposes. I expect that some of those could be put back into use if their owners wanted.

 

[swt_passenger]

You’d just need to get the neigh-sayers onside rather than the naysayers…

 

[AlterEgo]

I see no reason why not, considering that the royal family and the army keep quite a few horses in stables in central London.

I don't think Hyde Park Barracks or Horse Guards from the 18th Century needed planning permission.

 

[PG]

AFAIK in Scotland agricultural buildings aren't subject to the same degree of scrutiny in planning regulations as other buildings and so farmers can erect them pretty much at will. So if one were to  claim that a stable was for agricultural purposes in theory that'd okay...

 

[infobleep]

AFAIK in Scotland agricultural buildings aren't subject to the same degree of scrutiny in planning regulations as other buildings and so farmers can erect them pretty much at will. So if one were to  claim that a stable was for agricultural purposes in theory that'd okay...

How interesting.

I'm not the right type of person to start a business but if I was, this is what I'd like to do.

Set up a coach and horses company who offers trips from one coaching inn to another. You then stay the night in the coaching inn before being taken back to the start. Obviously you'd stop off on route for lunch.

The horses would be stabbed at the inn for the night, as opposed to a nearby farm.

The idea being to recreate the past travel in some way.

Given there is such an interest in heritage amd steam railways, and canal boats, why not coach and horses?

I know they can be hired for weddings and funerals. I saw one in Hassocks once going down one of the streets with houses that were probably built in the 1960s or 70s. It looked surreal, but I thought how lovely.

 

[swt_passenger]

The horses would be stabbed at the inn for the night, as opposed to a nearby farm.

You’ll need a lot of horses then. Or a good vet.

 

[infobleep]

You’ll need a lot of horses then. Or a good vet.

Well quite. I never got to the what it work stage as I know I'm not the type of person who'd be good at setting up a business.

 

[Non Multi]

OP has described a Mews house - stables and carriages/cabs/carts on the ground floor with living accommodation on the first floor. In central London, Bathurst Mews (by the north side of Hyde Park) still has working stables which are used by the local riding schools.

 

[infobleep]

OP has described a Mews house - stables and carriages/cabs/carts on the ground floor with living accommodation on the first floor. In central London, Bathurst Mews (by the north side of Hyde Park) still has working stables which are used by the local riding schools.

Now that I didn't know. How intersting.

 

[Calthrop]

How interesting.

I'm not the right type of person to start a business but if I was, this is what I'd like to do.

Set up a coach and horses company who offers trips from one coaching inn to another. You then stay the night in the coaching inn before being taken back to the start. Obviously you'd stop off on route for lunch.

The horses would be stabbed at the inn for the night, as opposed to a nearby farm.

The idea being to recreate the past travel in some way.

Given there is such an interest in heritage amd steam railways, and canal boats, why not coach and horses?

I know they can be hired for weddings and funerals. I saw one in Hassocks once going down one of the streets with houses that were probably built in the 1960s or 70s. It looked surreal, but I thought how lovely.

Thoughts on this theme of imaginable "working stage-coach preservation" (regular or quasi-regular workings, even?) -- a possibly attractive idea; a good few years ago, I initiated a thread on the "Railway History and Nostalgia" sub-forum, involving inter alia, this general subject. I'm useless at doing links; have to resort to: thread titled A heretical notion, OP 4/1/2017. There are ponderings by participants on this thread: of the perhaps regrettable fact that in view of the intensity everywhere nowadays, of road motor traffic; anything in the nature of preserved stage-coach movements, being given a slightly more authentic "feel" by the workings' running over a basically "sensible" route, from meaningful originating point A to ditto destination B, would be out of the question, because of the road-motor-traffic factor -- all that could happen, would be rather random tootling-around on very minor roads. A parallel with -- on the heritage-railway scene -- the purist-minded, tending to prefer lines which run from one recognisably-with-meaning place, to another (random examples, Severn Valley / Torbay & Dartmouth / Keighley & Worth Valley); rather than "somewhere-to-nowhere" or "nowhere-to-nowhere" outfits -- albeit, in almost all cases: preserved lines carry no genuine traffic of a non-recreational kind.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Thoughts on this theme of imaginable "working stage-coach preservation" (regular or quasi-regular workings, even?) -- a possibly attractive idea; a good few years ago, I initiated a thread on the "Railway History and Nostalgia" sub-forum, involving inter alia, this general subject. I'm useless at doing links; have to resort to: thread titled A heretical notion, OP 4/1/2017.

Here you are:

A heretical notion

A recent surprising – for a nostalgia-inclined railway enthusiast with a particular weakness for the narrow gauge – train of thought, which lately came about. Looking for general-knowledge question material; I turned to Google to supplement dim memories of reading stuff about public transport in...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[styles]

Generally-speaking, yes.

Solid chance you'd need a loicence for that: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2007/2465/schedule/made

Assuming you have everything up to standard though, no reason you wouldn't be granted one.

London famously has a few city farms with goats and horses just 5ft from the highway, in fields with the total footprint of a large house. No great reason a typical homeowner couldn't do the same if they had the space.

Whether that's really a great life for a horse is another matter. Personally I'd want a decent amount of space before I considered getting such large animals.

 

[infobleep]

Generally-speaking, yes.

Solid chance you'd need a loicence for that: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2007/2465/schedule/made

Assuming you have everything up to standard though, no reason you wouldn't be granted one.

London famously has a few city farms with goats and horses just 5ft from the highway, in fields with the total footprint of a large house. No great reason a typical homeowner couldn't do the same if they had the space.

Whether that's really a great life for a horse is another matter. Personally I'd want a decent amount of space before I considered getting such large animals.

So 100 years ago, most horses must have had a poor quality of life. I can see how that might have been the case.

 

[styles]

So 100 years ago, most horses must have had a poor quality of life. I can see how that might have been the case.

100 years ago we were using them to pull imperial tons through the smoggy streets of London. I can't imagine they had a particularly enjoyable life back then. Thankfully we managed to do away with this by inventing lorries.

The horses in the field near me where they have acres to roam and clean air I imagine they're fairly happy, even if not wild.

 

[PG]

100 years ago we were using them to pull imperial tons through the smoggy streets of London. I can't imagine they had a particularly enjoyable life back then. Thankfully we managed to do away with this by inventing lorries.

Although, with the benefit of hindsight, inventing lorries (along with other ICE vehicles) may have adversely affected quality of life for all species on the planet ever since.

 

[styles]

Although, with the benefit of hindsight, inventing lorries (along with other ICE vehicles) may have adversely affected quality of life for all species on the planet ever since.

Fair point!

Sadly we're in no position to time-travel back to 1925. We can only change the present and the future.

 

[Calthrop]

Here you are:

A heretical notion

A recent surprising – for a nostalgia-inclined railway enthusiast with a particular weakness for the narrow gauge – train of thought, which lately came about. Looking for general-knowledge question material; I turned to Google to supplement dim memories of reading stuff about public transport in...

www.railforums.co.uk

Thank'ee, midear.

So 100 years ago, most horses must have had a poor quality of life. I can see how that might have been the case.

100 years ago we were using them to pull imperial tons through the smoggy streets of London. I can't imagine they had a particularly enjoyable life back then.

Reckonably, somewhat better for horses in England, than in many parts of the world: (very broad generalisation -- exceptions both ways) -- the English have long tended toward soppy fondness for and kindness to animals, in comparison with their European neighbours (have recently been reading a book about World War I, and impressions re attitudes to "the brute creation" held by Brits serving on the Western Front, vis-a-vis same on the part of the various "continentals").