the perfect place to keep your horse

Facilities & Livery Yard near Edinburgh

Thornton Livery near Edinburgh provides the perfect home for your horse. We have excellent undercover stabling with a 20m x 40m Indoor arena and a large flood-lit Outdoor arena, as well as miles and miles of off-road hacking.

Thornton is ideally placed for those who need livery in the Edinburgh area. The yard is just 11 miles from central Edinburgh, a 30 minute drive and is easily accessed from the city bypass. We are also just a 5 minute walk from the bus terminus in Rosewell where the 49 bus stops every 15 minutes. Go to Lothian Buses for bus time-tables. Livery at Thornton for idyllic surroundings, rolling hills and woodland rides with fantastic views of Arthur's Seat and the Pentlands. All this located just a stones throw from the centre of the city within the Whitehill estate.

Our Livery

Thornton Livery offers D.I.Y. & Grass livery with first class facilities and 24hour on-site supervision.

We welcome all shapes and sizes of horse here, from hairy ponies to competition horses, from youngsters right though to those enjoying their retirement. At Thornton we try to fit the livery to you and your horse-we like to meet, discuss your requirements and offer you a tour of the yard and facilities. For contact details and to arrange a yard visit see the contact page.

All Liveries:

You can enjoy unlimited access to indoor and outdoor arenas as well as lots of off road hacking on the farm. The Tyne Esk Riding Route goes past the road end leading to quiet lanes and glorious countryside.

All clients can use the undercover wash bay and equine solarium, tie ups and hose booms around the yard. There are 5 secure tack rooms and a storage area for spare rugs.

Our Coffee Bothy is available to everyone and is a great place to make hot drink and sit down while waiting for the farrier or to take a break from mucking out. There is a kettle, fridge and microwave for liveries use.

We also offer space on the yard for you to park your Trailer or Horsebox on the yard.

Grass Liveries:

Grass livery is provided in large well maintained shared paddocks. These are managed to ensure year-round grazing is always available and to help minimize the inevitable winter mud.

When required in the colder months hay or haylage is provided in the field for grass liveries which is fed in Haybell plastic feeders, keeping the feed in good condition and the horses safe, this is included in the grass livery pricing.

DIY Livery:

DIY livery benefits from Thornton Livery’s acres of grazing described above in the Grass Livery Section with the addition of stabling for your horse in your choice of the available large, airy loose boxes.

Also included in the price is home-grown hay or haylage and you can choose to use our straw or provide your own bedding which is reflected in the price, see tariffs.

We don’t offer Full or Part Livery at Thornton but if you need assistance with turning out, bringing in and mucking out we recommend two freelance grooms who are regularly available on the yard. Dionne and Jo are both reliable and helpful and their contact details can be found on the links page if you’d like to contact either of them to arrange help with your horses care.

Our Stable yard

Thornton Livery near Edinburgh is based on Thornton farm just outside Rosewell. Thornton is a working farm producing our own hay, haylage and straw as well as rearing sheep and cattle.

The stables are all high quality hunt stables 12 x 12ft and12 x 14ft. Most are arranged in an American barn style with the stables and walkways undercover. We have a handy wash bay, secure tack rooms, and masses of car parking.

Our clients have freedom to bed and feed whatever they want, and we do not insist on our own farriers or vets. We like to make things easy for you too, Thornton Livery has a 'Pick up Point' for local Rug Wash and Murray Farmcare Ltd. makes weekly feed deliverys for free! See links.

We also have reduced rate grazing slightly further from the main yard and facilities. This can be an option for young of retired horses that are on grass livery.

Please note that we do not allow clients to bring their dogs to the yard.

Our Paddocks

Grazing for the horses and ponies at Thornton Livery is provided from our 70 acres of lovely grass pasture and permenent electric fencing. This is sectioned into smaller paddocks which have limited number of horses in each. This allows us to manage and rotate fields when they need rested and also take into account horses different requirements.

Maintenance is carried out using specialist farm equipment and sheep graze alongside the horses which improves the health of the grass.

Our vet led yard worming programme based on worm egg counts helps keep the grazing clean and the horses healthy.

Riding at Thornton Livery

Liveries have the dedicated use of both the indoor and outdoor arenas. The indoor arena (20 x 40m) has a new fibre and sand surface, dressage markers and show jumps. The outdoor arena has a sand surface and is a large area(60 x 60m) for schooling and jumping with a full set of Jumps for Joy plastic show jumps and can accomodate our dressage arena with dressage boards and markers.

The off-road hacking is superb with plenty of farm tracks and woodland rides available. You can also easily link up to the Tyne Esk Riding Trail of which Thornton Trail a 9 mile ride is a part, taking in Thornton and the surrounding area.

The nearby country lanes are very quiet making roadwork safe and easy.