Whitehall

Whitehall is a house dating from the 18th century, with earlier origins, and remodelled and extended in the early 19th century. The front is faced with painted stucco, while the rest of the building is of painted rubble or cob with brick garden walls flanking the south front. The roof is a complex arrangement of dry Delabole slate to the front section, with large rendered brick stacks over the gable ends of the main range and a hip-roofed wing to the southwest. A hipped scantle slate roof covers the 18th-century rear wing (northeast), with corrugated asbestos to the hip. A further wing adjoining to the northwest has a hipped roof and a brick chimney over its gable end.

The house has an irregular plan centered around a two-room 18th-century core, with a single-room wing set at an angle to the southwest, a large 18th-century kitchen wing to the rear, and a further two-room range adjoining the northwest corner of the kitchen to the west. An early 19th-century infill provides a central stair. The south front presents an irregular three-window façade with a one-window wing at the angle to the left. The ground floor doorway is off-centre to the right and is set back behind a flat-roofed early 19th-century projection with identical flanking canted bays, each with three marginal glazed 16-pane sashes set within fluted pilasters. The other windows follow a similar pattern of sashes, with the exception of a side-opening casement above and to the left of the doorway, and a French window to the wing. Flanking embattled brick garden walls each contain a central pointed arched niche. The east wall of the kitchen wing has wide openings with paired hornless 12-pane sashes. Cast iron ogee gutters are present throughout.

The interior features detail from the early 19th century, including an open-well stair with a wreathed mahogany handrail and newel. There are also guilloche moulded plaster ceiling bands in the vestibule and reception rooms, along with panelled doors. The first floor and roof structures were not inspected. The house is believed to have been the residence of the Hornblower family, successful mining engineers including Joseph Hornblower, who was a partner of Thomas Newcomen, and his sons Jonathan, Josiah, and Jabez. Jabez Hornblower was involved in a legal dispute concerning a James Watt patent.