Rocket House

Rocket House is a house dating from the mid-18th century, built on an earlier core. It is constructed of brick, originally colourwashed pink, and has a black glazed pantile roof. The house has three bays and a rear extension to the centre and left bays, with two storeys and an attic. It features raised gable parapets and end internal stacks. The windows are recessed sashes with glazing bars, with two on the ground floor and three on the first floor. A 19th-century porch encloses the central doorway; the brick base was renewed after floods in 1953, and the upper part is glazed with fixed lights, topped by a parapet of spiked iron bars. A double-leaved door with panelled reveals leads into the house. A semicircular, lead-covered dormer window on the roof has four fixed panes. The left gable is rendered. The rear has a raised section to create a two-storey extension, with a casement window on pintle hinges, two lights, one with leaded panes. The right gable adjoins Whalebone House.

Inside, the entrance opens to a double-depth room to the left. Doorcases have reeded surrounds, and there are six-panelled doors throughout. A fireplace features swags, and the ceiling has a raised lozenge outline; a dado rail displays a wave decoration. An open-string curved staircase is located in the rear extension to the right, with a wreathed mahogany handrail, turned newels, square-sectioned balusters, and an octagonal lantern rising from a beehive aperture through the loft. Fire surrounds with swags and patera are present in the front first-floor rooms. The roof structure incorporates butt purlins, wide collars, and no ridge piece, with most rafters of reused ships spars. Large stacks are present and there is a loft to the rear over the extension. An original flint wall is visible to the front, now brick faced.