04/05/2026
This building has been here since the 1820s.
Two wings of six-stall stables flanking a central coach house, large enough for two vehicles. A granary above the stalls. The whole structure extended and remodelled in the early 1840s to match the additions to Woolmers House, the iron reinforcement straps beneath the pilasters still marking where the two stages of construction meet.
The men who worked here didn't sleep far from it. Grooms and stable lads slept in the loft above the horses. That was standard practice. That was the life.
Isaac Boxall arrived at Woolmers in 1833, convicted of stealing £20 from a dwelling house in Surrey and sentenced to transportation for life. He was 21 years old. He arrived as a ploughman. With no offences recorded in the colony, he earned the prestigious role of coachman, one of the most trusted positions on the estate.
The Woolmers coachmen wore scarlet uniforms trimmed with Sheffield silver buttons, each engraved with the Archer crest. The coach itself was emblazoned with the same crest. Isaac drove it on roads through the Midlands, into Launceston and back.
William Archer's diary, 5 September 1851: "Boxall drove me to Entally."
By 1840 he had earned his Ticket of Leave. By 1846, a Conditional Pardon. The birth records of his children, born through the early 1840s, list his occupation as "coachman at Woolmers."
He earned his freedom. He built a family. He came home each night to the Coachman's Cottage, just across the yard.
The Coach House & Stables still stands. The stalls are still there. The iron reinforcement straps are still visible in the walls. One car remains inside, the 1912 Wolseley, parked in the same space where Isaac once readied the horses.
