Whitebridge

Whitebridge is a house on Redlands Lane in Crondall, formerly a farmhouse and at one time divided into two cottages. The building is a 18th century remodelling of a 17th century or earlier structure, restored in the 1960s. It is constructed of red brick with a tiled roof, hipped to the front and with two hips to the rear. Brick end chimneysstacks survive to the south east, north west and south west below the ridge line.

The house is of two storeys with three windows, mostly of 20th century casement style. The front or south elevation is laid in Flemish bond and features a brick modillion cornice and plinth. The frontage is symmetrical, with three 1960s casements to the first floor set within original openings, and a four-light bay to the right of the ground floor set beneath an original relieving arch. A gabled central 19th century porch, no longer in use as such, stands at the centre.

The east elevation is built in English bond with some two-inch brickwork and a projecting chimneystack, with no windows. The west elevation has a projecting truncated chimneystack, a blocked cambered-headed opening on the ground floor, and also contains some two-inch brickwork. A ground floor 20th century brick lean-to extension has been added. The rear elevation is in English bond with three irregularly spaced windows. The first floor retains late 19th or early 20th century wooden casements with cambered heads. The ground floor has an enlarged opening to the left with a mid-20th century door flanked by sidelights and a late 20th century uPVC window to the right. The central cambered opening was originally a doorcase but was converted into a window in the mid-20th century.

Internally, the house contains four ground floor rooms. The south eastern room or Lounge features a wide open fireplace with a wooden bressumer with niches and a domed brick bread oven. It retains a chamfered axial beam with a two-inch chamfer, straight floor joists and an 18th century tiled floor. Some 17th century panelling was brought into the house during the 1960s from Manydown House at Wootton St Lawrence near Basingstoke. There are 18th century floor tiles and an 18th century doorcase. The Dining Room to the south west has 18th century beams, or possibly an earlier axial beam reduced in width to allow it to be plastered, and an open fireplace containing a chain for hanging a cooking pot. A photograph taken during building works suggests the chimneystack may contain 17th century brickwork. The north west room or Kitchen has an open fireplace with a wooden bressumer and an axial beam and floor joists which were originally plastered. Between the north east and north west rooms is an early 18th century doorcase with a pegged architrave. The north east room has a narrow moulded cornice and a chamfered axial beam with a run-out stop. A staircase was inserted in the 1960s, reusing a mahogany handrail, stick balusters and probably cast iron decorative panels (although these are said to be of lead) from Manydown House. The first floor retains an original 17th century wooden mullioned window, now internal, between the south east and north east rooms, and some 18th century panelled doors. The roof structure appears to be 18th century with tie beams and original rafters.

Whitebridge was part of the Manor of Eastbridge which belonged to the Giffard family until 1604. Cannon balls dug up in the garden in the 1960s suggest a skirmish during the Civil War. The Eastbridge estate, including Whitebridge, which appears to have been a farm at that time, was sold to George Johnston in 1825. In the later 19th and early 20th centuries the building was divided into two cottages by an internal partition running north to south. It became one house again in the 1960s.