Northgate House The White Swan Public House

The White Swan Public House and Northgate House is a public house and adjoining dwelling, dating back to the 17th century and featuring additions and alterations from the 18th, early and mid 19th, and early 20th centuries. The building is constructed of brick, stucco, rubble, flint, and timber frame, with a plain tile hipped roof and tile hung gables to the south end additions. It has two brick ridge stacks and a brick stack at the south end. The building comprises two storeys over a cellar and a single-storey wing at the south end.

The core of the building consists of a long 17th-century timber-framed range that has been altered and extended with a rear wing and other rear additions in the 18th and early 19th centuries. The front was refronted and re-roofed in the mid-19th century, with early 20th-century additions to the dwelling at the south end. The front facade of the public house and dwelling is in an Italianate style, stuccoed with stone details and featuring three bays of unequal width defined by banded pilaster strips. All door and window openings have projecting architrave and sill frames with crowning cornices on moulded console brackets. The right-hand bay contains the entrance to the dwelling. The left-hand bay has an entrance to the public house framed by pilaster strips and a cornice, enclosing a two-light shop or public bar window to the right, with semi-circular arched heads to the lights and a central colonnette mullion. The wider central bay has a pair of framed sashes, a single sash to the right, and a doorway inserted into a former sash opening; above, there's a similar pair of framed sashes flanked by a sash to either side. A pair of framed sashes are located at first floor in each of the end bays. A three-light public bar window with arched lights and colonnette mullions is visible on the return north end wall. The rear wing features a rubble and flint south wall with brick dressings and early 20th-century sashes. The east wall has two early 19th-century sashes with bars (3 x 4 panes) on the first floor, alongside early 19th and 20th-century sashes and casements at the rear of the main range. Two parallel cross-gabled early 20th-century wings extend from the south end.

The interior of the main range reveals exposed 17th-century chamfered beams on the ground floor, with framing posts and principal beams exposed on the first floor. Early 19th-century panelling and cornices adorn the back bar within the central addition to the main range, alongside three arched niche or door frames with moulded architraves and impost and keyblocks on the south wall. Similar early 19th-century joinery is found within the entrance hall of the adjoining dwelling. Mid-19th-century etched and cut glass panels feature in the windows of the public bar. The site has operated as a hostelry since the 16th century.