If you live in Surrey, your home is likely either immersed in the countryside or near an affluent town.
Vast stretches of Surrey are in the Metropolitan Green Belt and the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). And many urban centres feature rich historic architecture.
For this reason, many Councils apply planning constraints to preserve Surrey’s natural and historic beauty.
In this article, we help you choose the best stable design for your property - whether you live in the middle of the Surrey Hills or on the outskirts of a modern village.
Different planning regulations apply depending on where you live in Surrey and the type of stables you plan to build.
If you live in a designated area - like the Surrey Hills AONB - or a conservation area in a town like Farnham, you likely need to apply for planning permission from your Local Planning Authority.
If your home is a listed building, you must also apply for listed building consent.
If your home isn’t in a designated area, in some instances, you might be able to build a small block for private leisure only without applying for full permission.
Whatever your situation, make sure you contact your Local Planning Authority to see what rules apply to your property.
Here are Chart Stables’ team’s top tips for building a stable block that fits well in a Surrey context.
Tile-hung cottages, Medieval churches, Georgian townhouses, and untouched castles shape the character of Surrey's historic towns, villages, and rural areas.
While most types of timber stables fit in this setting, you can build yours to mirror the historic architecture around your property. A more traditional design will likely help you obtain planning permission.
The typical historic architecture in Surrey features:
Observe the area around your home to determine which features are prevalent, and choose design elements that best complement them.
Choose timber weatherboard cladding to give your stable block a more traditional look. This cladding technique, which involves installing long, overlapping boards to protect a building's exterior walls from the elements, is common in historic and rural architecture.
Over time, the timber cladding becomes grey, looking timeless.
Design a roof that matches the style of the roofs near your home.
If your property is in an area with historic buildings featuring steep-hipped roofs , choose a roof with a steeper angle (like the 35° Chester Tiled Roof Stables) and match the covering with clay tiles.
If buildings with gabled roofs surround your property, worry less about the pitch and more about complementing their colour. Pick either cedar shingles, shaded red Onduvilla tiles, or clay or slate tiles.
If your property is near a rare thatched-roof building, match the pitch and opt for natural-looking cedar shingles.
If your property is outside the Green Belt, the Surrey Hills, or a conservation area and is not a Listed Building, you can choose the stable design that you like best.
Clad the exterior walls with either shiplap or weatherboarding. Choose shiplap cladding for a more modern, simple look; opt for weatherboarding for a traditional aesthetic.
If the stable block is close to your home, choose a pitch and covering material that mirrors your home’s.
Popular roof covering options include:
Factor in the fact that Onduline sheets muffle the sound of rain, keeping the building quiet for your horses.
At Chart Stables, we build custom timber stables that look at home in rural and historic settings.
Our sturdy wooden stables come as fixed and mobile blocks. Our fixed stables are available in the Clipper, Chart, and Chester ranges. Our mobile stables come in the Clipper and Chart ranges.
The Chester Tiled Roof Stables have a standard roof pitch of 35°, ready to take your preferred tiles, making them ideal for properties in historic settings. As an option, you can extend the canopies to 1.8 metres (6 feet) to better protect your horses from the elements. These come with thick support posts, strengthened headers, and traditional curved bracing.
The Chester and Chart ranges come with standard talk grilles between the stables.
All fixed and mobile stable ranges are built in thick pressurised timber and have kick boarding, sturdy stable doors, shuttered windows, and anti-chew stripping.
Our timber stables are built to order, so you can customise them to suit any size and configuration. Choose the number of stables, the type of doors, and the structure’s shape. Add a tack room, wash bay, or hay store.
Finally, we offer shiplap and weatherboard cladding.
At Chart Stables, we’re the UK's largest and most trusted manufacturers of equestrian buildings. We can deliver and install your stables or create a DIY kit, saving you 20% on the unit cost.
