White House Farmhouse

Former farmhouse. The rear wing dates to the mid-16th century, with the original rear wing’s backmost cell now part of the front range. Around 1600, a three-cell addition formed the front range. Later alterations occurred in the 17th century. The house is of an L-shape. It is timber-framed and mostly plastered. The front roof slope of the front range is covered in old plain tiles; the rest is pantiled. The house is two storeys and has an attic. There are four windows, with 19th-century casements on the first floor and mid-20th-century casements on the ground floor. One small original mullioned window is located below a chimney stack, with others to the rear and right gable. There are two doorways with mid-20th-century boarded doors. The internal chimney stack has three octagonal shafts, rebuilt in the mid-20th century but retaining original moulded bases. The rear wing’s internal chimney stack has a rendered shaft. Inside, much of the timber frame is exposed, including good close studding and blocked ovolo-mullioned windows dating to around 1600 in the front range. The hall features an axial bridging beam with ovolo moulding and a soffit carved with a band of laurel leaves; ovolo joists with nicked stop-chamfers; and an ovolo cornice. The parlour has an ovolo axial bridging beam with a recessed soffit and plain joists. The parlour fireplace retains small remains of a hoodmoulded brick arch. The rear wing represents the original farmhouse, later used as service rooms; it contains evidence of cross-entry doorways and the former service partition. An incomplete plank and muntin screen features a four-centre arched doorway. Above this is a three-bay room with two cambered tie beams supporting a queen-post roof. A newel stair is located by the stack, likely dating to the 16th century. In the later 17th century, the front range was given a butt-purlin roof that extended across the parlour cell of the rear wing, raising the walls of that section by approximately 0.7 metres.