White House Farmhouse

White House Farmhouse is a timber-framed house dating from approximately 1570, with alterations made in the early 17th century and a restoration in the early 20th century. The house is timber-framed and plastered, revealing exposed framing, and has a roof covered in handmade red clay tiles. It comprises a main block of five bays facing southeast, with an external stack at the right end and an early 17th-century three-bay extension beyond. A further external stack is located at the left end.

The main block is two storeys high with attics, while the extension is two storeys high. On the ground floor of the main block are two transomed six-light oriels, each paired with a four-light window to either side, featuring moulded jambs and mullions, wrought iron casements, and diamond leading, all accurately restored in the early 20th century. The first floor has two similar windows, but without transoms, alongside two two-light casements in a matching style. An attic window is a 17th-century three-light window within a gabled dormer, with a single wrought iron casement and diamond leading. The building has a full-length jetty. The right-hand extension features a four-window range of 20th-century casements designed in a 16th-century style. A 20th-century door is within a red brick porch in Flemish bond, incorporating a segmental arch, crow-stepped gable, a round-headed niche, and another 20th-century door. The roof is hipped at the right end and includes a concertina shaft with a moulded base.

The interior reveals jowled posts, curved bracing, trenched close studding, edge-halved and bridled scarfs in the wallplates. The left ground floor room of the main block has richly moulded and carved transverse and longitudinal beams, featuring spiral leaf motifs with foliate scroll stops, moulded covings, plastered soffits to the joists, an original doorway with a four-centred head, and a wood-burning hearth with a depressed arch of plastered brick with foliate spandrels. The right ground floor room contains richly moulded and carved axial beams in a vine pattern, horizontal section joists with converging stops, and reset 17th-century oak panelling. First-floor rooms have transverse beams in a spiral leaf design and horizontal section joists with foliate scroll stops. The right-hand room has an original hearth with a moulded mantel beam and brick jambs. The roof utilizes a crownpost construction, featuring a single thin axial brace on the left and four octagonal crownposts with lamb's tongue stops and lacking bracing or mortices for bracing – a construction described as rare or possibly unique. The attic staircase has solid treads. The right extension has simpler construction, including plain horizontal section joists, diamond mortices for formerly unglazed windows, and jowled posts with arched braces. The roof of this wing, and the right portion of the main roof, were rebuilt in the 20th century.

The house’s setting includes a canal, approximately 2 kilometers long, connecting with the Blackwater estuary and terminating in a basin immediately behind the house, suggesting a historical connection to a merchant involved in import-export or coastal trade. It was identified as White House on Chapman and André's map of 1777, and was described as partly plastered and partly weatherboarded, and in poor condition, by the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (RCHM) in the 1920s.