1 White Cottages

1 White Cottages is a house built in the late 16th or early 17th century, with later additions to the sides and rear. The building is constructed as a timber-box frame with painted-brick infill and some earlier wattle-and-daub panels. The front elevation and dormer window are clad in hung tiles. The lean-tos are built of stone and brick. The roof is tiled, hipped to the south and half-hipped to the north, with brick stacks.

The building is detached and stands at the north end of a sloping garden plot. It has a rectangular footprint with the rear east elevation built against a bank. The original two-room lobby-entrance plan remains legible, with later lean-to extensions added to the side elevation and to the rear, where the current staircase is now located.

The two-storey front west elevation shows an exposed ground-floor timber box frame with painted brick infill and hung tiles to the first floor. A central entrance door sits beneath a conical porch roof, flanked by a pair of two-storey bow windows with conical roofs. Above the door is a six-pane first-floor casement window. Stone lean-tos with catslide tile roofs extend to the north and south. The southern lean-to includes casement windows, a brick stack, and is partially clad in weatherboarding with a side door. Above this lean-to the half-hipped end of the house displays exposed first-floor box frame and a central casement window. To the rear is a brick lean-to with a catslide roof that features a dormer window, further casement windows, and a side entrance in its south return. The tile roof is topped near its centre by a brick stack with stepped detailing. A small fragment of stone wall attached to the front elevation is not included in the listing.

The front door opens into a lobby beside a substantial central brick chimney stack, which is partially rendered within the roof. Fireplaces are situated either side of the central stack on both floors; all have been subject to some degree of infilling and contain mid-20th-century brick fire surrounds. Evidence of early carpentry survives including the box frame, various phases of floorboards, plank doors, exposed ceiling joists, and a chamfered bressumer over the north-facing fireplace with a visible lamb-tongue stop at one end. A ground-floor timber archway has been inserted in the original rear wall to provide access to the rear lean-to, and internal windows are present within the same partitions. An additional brick fireplace is located within the northern lean-to. The early staircase, most likely positioned to the side of the main stack, has been removed. The straight flight stair in the rear lean-to is a later insertion, with an opening made at first-floor level to provide access to the rooms above; the wall plate in this location shows evidence of open mortises where original infill has been removed. Further timber-framing is visible within the two first-floor rooms, including jowled posts. Within the roof spaces of the rear northern catslide roofs, evidence survives of the timber frame with daub infill in the walls of the principal historic range. The structure of the tie beam roof is visible within the first-floor ceiling and attic space, retaining many historic timbers including ties, collars, purlins, and rafters.