White House Farmhouse (EHER 38532)

A two storey, timber framed late 16th century farmhouse, altered in the 17th century and restored in the 20th century.

May 1986. Grade II* listed. A timber framed house built in around 1570, altered in the early 17th century and restored in the early 20th century. It is plastered with exposed framing and the roof is covered in handmade tiles, and hipped at the right end. The building comprises five bays facing SE with am early 17th century three-bay extension beyond the right end. Both ranges are of two storey construction and the building has a full-length jetty. The ground floor of the original build features two 'transomed' windows, each with a four-light window to each side. The interior has jowled posts, curved bracing trenched inside close studding, edge-halved and bridled scarfs in the wallplates. The ground floor rooms are richly decorated with moulded covings and carved beams, as well as reset 17th century oak panelling. There is a wood-burning hearth with depressed arch of plastered brick and with foliate spandrels in the left ground floor room. The right room has an original hearth with moulded mantel beam and moulded brick jambs. A canal approximately 2 km long connects with the Blackwater estuary, terminating in a basin immediately behind the house, indicating that this was formerly the house of a merchant engaged in import-export or coastal trade. It is shown as White House on Chapman and André's map of 1777. It was described as partly plastered and partly weatherboarded, and in poor condition, by the Royal Commission for Historic Monuments (RCHM), in the 1920s. <1> <2> See photos <3>. Correspondence and photographs dating to 1930s. <4> <5> The parish of Mundon was a single manor held by St Johns Abbey, Colchester passing in 1539 to Lord Cromwell and then the Crown. The manor house and church are to the South of White House. In 1556 Mary granted Iltney Farm (NE of the White House) to William Harris along with other lands and tenements. The rest was given to the Duchy of Lancaster in 1558 and acquired in the early 17th century by Sir Thomas Wiseman. <6> NRHE data transfer: White House Farm [NAT]. <7> White House Farm, house, 1,100 yards N.N.W. of the church, is of two storeys, timber-framed and partly plastered and partly weather-boarded; the roofs are tiled. It was built in the 16th century and has an original chimney-stack at the East end with a moulded base to the shaft. Inside the building are original moulded ceiling-beams and joists. Condition-Poor. <2>