Stable block at the former Army School of Equitation

Image: © Chris Taken: Unknown

Taken in the 1970's just before the stables were demolished to make way for a housing estate. Only the pillars and cobbled floor of one of the stable blocks remains, as a feature in the middle of the estate of houses: see Image, which also has video links showing horses and riders. The school was formed at the Upper Barracks in 1922, combining the Cavalry and Artillery Training Establishments. New stables and an indoor riding school were constructed. The adjacent Civil Officers' houses to the east served as the Officers' Mess and Quarters. The facility was demolished in the 1970's and the indoor riding hall sold off to be used as a grain store. It was part of an enormous military site/Ordnance Depot, an important historical site dating from Napoleonic times. Incredibly the beautiful Pavilions, though originally given listed status, were included in the demolition after it was decided the foundations were unsafe. The construction company who bought the site let part of the stables on a peppercorn rent to be used as an art workshop. The idea was to incorporate it into the estate if it were successful. It attracted a grant of £1,000 from the Arts Council, but closed in 1976 after 3 years. All that has survived of the Army Equitation School, apart from the pillars and cobbles, is its influence on the modern style of riding - in the place of the traditional "backward seat" seen on the old hunting pictures, it taught a modified version of the "forward seat" developed by Federico Caprilli in the Italian army school at Pinerolo and Tor di Quinto. The Weedon school gained international renown through the competition achievements of its pupils, among them Col. Harry Llewellyn and his famous horse Foxhunter, and Lieut.Col. Talbot-Ponsonby, who also wrote several books on forward seat equitation. In about 1979 I interviewed a Weedon resident, George Clarke, who remembers the equitation school from his childhood (his uncle was based there) and I have some wonderful stories of the horses and training, including the annual "Donny Brook Day".

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