White House Farmhouse

TM 37 NE WISSETT MILL ROAD

5/62 White House Farmhouse

1-9-53 - II

Farmhouse. Late C16 and early C17. Timber-framed and plastered, with pantiled roofs. 2 storeys and attics; L-shaped form. The main range has a 3- cell form, with internal chimney-stack and cross-entry, later replaced by a lobby entrance. The stack has 4 square attached shafts on a rectangular base with a blank recessed panel. Old 3-light casement windows with transomes and pintle hinges; one dormer, with an almost flat lead-covered roof, and another in similar style in the wing. C19 gabled brick porch with pantiled roof and narrow pointed windows at the sides. Plain timbering exposed inside; main beams and joists with chamfer and lamb's tongue stops, posts with long jowls, reversed braces at the corners. The upper ceilings are original. The chimney-stack has 4 hearths: on the ground floor, one with a plain timber lintel and moulded brick jambs, the other with a brick arch; on the first floor, one with an unsually decorated cast-iron hob grate, the other with a small 4-centred brick arch. The roof, in short bays, has one row of unstepped butt purlins and one row of clasped, diminished principals and windbraces. A stair-wing to the rear of the stack contains a wide Jacobean dog-leg stair to the first floor with turned balusters and newels. The service area, still unheated, is not divided into 2. The rear wing, which provided additional service-rooms, is in 2½ bays with a brick gable-end incorporating a large chimney-stack, which may replace an earlier smoke-bay. Plain beam-and-joist ceiling to part. Newel stair beside the stack to the first floor and attic. Roof with a curious mixture of butt and clasped treatment of the purlins (cf. parts of North Green Farmhouse, Stoven, NMR report).

Listing NGR: TM3694979049