The White House, Appleby-in-Westmorland, Cumbria

Summary

House, early C18, re-modelled 1754 and 1764-1765 for John Robinson, extended late C18. The latter design attributed to Henry Ballas (or Bellhouse) of Appleby.

Description

House, early C18, re-modelled 1754 and 1764-1765 for John Robinson, the latter attributed to Henry Bellas (or Bellhouse) of Appleby; extended in the late C18.

MATERIALS: red sandstone rubble, rendered and painted with red sandstone quoins, painted; Westmorland slate roofs. Brick-built rear range.

PLAN: a rectangular main building with a narrower, attached rectangular former service wing to the rear, and a small cottage with a polygonal east end.

EXTERIOR: the building is situated on Boroughgate, the main medieval thoroughfare of the town. It is a whitewashed, three-storey building with attic and basement beneath a hipped roof of Westmorland slate. It has a stone plinth, alternating quoins and three squared stone string courses dividing the floors. The west elevation facing Boroughgate has three depressed, ogee-headed windows to each floor with moulded architraves and a squared impost block; the upper sash has interlaced glazing bars giving the appearance of tracery. There are basement windows in the stone plinth. The right return has a central entrance with an ogee-headed stone surround with pilasters and a curving stone hood above an ogee-arched fanlight. The door has raised and fielded panels, which in the lower parts are formed by a cross arrangement of curved rails and styles centred on a diamond-shaped panel. There are three windows to each storey of the same form as the west elevation; at attic level there are three bulls eye windows. The north elevation has scattered fenestration, mostly of rectangular-headed windows with plain surrounds and with early-C18 sash windows with thick glazing bars, and two of ogee-headed style. The east elevation has a single ogee-headed window to each floor and a bulls eye window to the attic; the remainder of this elevation is obscured by the attached rear range.

The two-storey brick-built rear range has rusticated stone quoins to the north-east and south-east corners, a stone rubble plinth and a squared string course, under a hipped roof with a central brick chimney stack. The ground floor has a tri-partite moulded ogee-headed window with moulded stone mullions lighting the former kitchen, and a single-light similar window to the right and four identical windows to the first floor. All have sliding sash windows with inter-lacing glazing bars to the upper sash. There are inserted entrances to the east and west ends, and a round-headed entrance to the west end, now a window. At the east end of the range there is a later-C18 lower brick-built former stable (now - 2019 - a cottage) with rusticated quoins, beneath a hipped roof with a central ventilator, and with similar windows to the kitchen/stable range. Attached to the east end is a single-storey polygonal bay beneath a pyramidal roof; it has an ashlar plinth, a deep moulded plinth course and a polygonal bay-window with a moulded surround and mullions with squared impost blocks, and depressed ogee-arched lights.

INTERIOR: the mid-C18 plan-form is largely retained with minor modifications. The stair hall houses an open-string dog-leg staircase, with slender turned balusters and a moulded ramped handrail with a scrolled end on a fluted, slender newel post. Stairs to the right lead down to the cellar (not inspected, 2019) and beyond there is a redundant servant stairwell (today occupied by a WC), and a service room beyond. The stair hall and first and second floor landings have modillioned, moulded plaster cornices and there are moulded cornices to the main reception rooms and most rooms on the upper floors. The principal floors have contemporary doors with raised and fielded panels: those to the ground and first floors match that of the main entrance (with the exception of a plain six-panelled door through the north wall of the south-east room and a modern replacement to the first floor). Elsewhere they are conventional six-panel doors. There are panelled reveals and soffits to most windows, which are fitted with painted and unpainted shutters with ogee heads; those to the second floor are unpainted and engraved with names and early-C19 dates. Chimneypieces are mostly C19 and Georgian in style, with small cast-iron canted ones to the south-east rooms on the first and second floors. The attic was not inspected (2019) but when surveyed in 1993, it was reached from the second floor by the retained upper flight of a servant stair, the remainder had been removed and its stairwell redundant. The stair was described as early C18 in form having a crude square-section handrail surmounted by a deep moulding, squared newels and turned balusters, of which only two remained. The attic rooms had moulded stone fireplace. The original 1764-1765 pegged roof structure was retained and described as being of three bays with two trusses with tie beams, king posts, raked struts and principal rafters with curved feet.

The western part of the rear range comprises a series of former service rooms, two with six-panel doors. One has a cooking hearth at the east end with a red sandstone surround with moulded brackets supporting a projecting lintel. To the right there is a brick-arched alcove interpreted as a possible later fireplace, and a brick segmental-arched opening to the left opens into a second room with an inserted range to its west wall. The first floor of this range was not inspected, but the 1993 survey described three bedrooms with a north corridor, all with good ceiling cornices and six-panel doors matching those of the street range. Fireplaces had late-C19 Georgian style surrounds. The attached cottage (former stable) forming the eastern end of this range has a modern interior.

SUBSIDIARY ITEM: to the front of the west elevation there is a low stone wall with double-chamfered ashlar coping stones set with replacement C20 railings.

History

The White House is thought to have been constructed in the early C18, when it occupied a single burgage plot owned by the Morland Family. It was three storeys with a cellar and attic and an entrance front to the west, street elevation. In 1753 the property was acquired by the Lowther Family and is depicted on two 1754 plans of Appleby, described as 'Burgage house, back Kitchen, Stable and Garden'. Later in 1754 extensive building work was undertaken to improve the existing house and provide a home for John Robinson, attorney and man of business of the Lowther family: the interior was refitted with new floors, stairs, windows and fireplaces, and the original plan-form was modified by the addition of a stone-built rear wing, into which the original stair was moved.

Between 1764 and 1765 John Robinson was granted a 999 year lease on the White House and acquired three burgage plots to the south, which were combined to provide grounds. The house underwent a major phase of alteration and gained its present Gothick style and a new entrance front to the south elevation. The 2010 Pevsner edition for Cumbria attributes this work to Henry Ballas (or Bellhouse) of Appleby, who was responsible for the Grade II* listed Helbeck Hall, Cumbria (National Heritage List for England: 1327012), also designed in the Gothick style. The rear pile of the street range was extended to the east, the eaves raised slightly and a new hipped roof constructed over the whole. At the same time a new main stair was installed in the street range and the stair in the rear range removed. This work probably reflects Robinson’s rise in social and political status which saw him import the fashionable Gothick style to Appleby. At the same time the existing rear wing was largely demolished and a new brick-built kitchen/stable range constructed in its place. In 1780, following a dispute with Sir James Lowther, Robinson, now living in London, disposed of his Westmorland properties, including the White House, to Sackville Tufton, Earl of Thanet, in the ownership of whose family the lease remained until 1961. From 1780 to 1793 the White House was home to John Robinson’s brother Jeremiah, also a lawyer.

In the late C18 the rear wing was extended to the east to provide a dedicated stable; at the same time a detached outbuilding was constructed opposite, and garden pavilions were added to the east ends of the rear wing and this outbuilding. In the late C18 or early C19 a summerhouse in Gothick style was built in the south-west corner of the garden set against a pre-existing garden wall. From 1903 the house was occupied by a series of medical doctors, who practised from the ground floor of the building. Subsequent to a Royal Commission survey of the building in 1993, alterations have included the conversion of the first and second floors to a pair of separate apartments arranged either side of the staircase and minor alterations to the interior of the attached kitchen/stable range.

John Robinson (1727-1802) was born in Appleby in modest bourgeois affluence. After attending Appleby Grammar School he trained as an attorney and entered the service of the youthful heir to the Lowther estates, Sir James Lowther (1736-1803). Under Lowther patronage he served as Appleby’s town clerk (1750-1) and mayor (1760-1761), lieutenant colonel in the Westmorland militia in 1751, county magistrate in 1762 and MP for Westmorland in 1764. In 1752 Robinson had married into the family of London-based merchants, but he did not break with Sir James Lowther until 1773, moving in 1774 to the treasury borough of Harwich (Essex) for which he sat until his death. In 1779 he bought Wyke House in Isleworth (Greater London), and had it redesigned by Robert Adam. In 1781 his only child Mary married Henry Neville, who became earl of Abergavenny in 1783; the present marquis is a direct descendent.

From 1770 to 1782 Robinson was junior Treasury Secretary in the administration of Lord North. In addition to his duties as parliamentary whip, organiser of the general elections of 1774 and 1780 and manager of patronage, Robinson, in alliance with his close political and personal friend Charles Jenkinson, effectively ran North’s perennially shaky government at a time of war in America, and potential crises in Ireland and India. Robinson resigned with North in 1782, but between 1783-1784 played a crucial role in the rise to enduring power of William Pitt the younger, who was briefly MP for Robinson’s home town of Appleby. The phrase ‘as quick as you can say Jack Robinson’ has been ascribed to John Robinson, but more probably dates from the C17.

Reasons for Listing

The White House, 27 Boroughgate, a house of early-C18 date, re-modelled 1754 and 1764-1765 for John Robinson, extended in the late C18, is listed at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* an imposing high status dwelling employing the fashionable mid-C18 Gothick style, considered to be a design of Henry Bellas (or Bellhouse) of Appleby;
* intact and well-articulated, whitewashed elevations of multiple depressed ogee-headed windows and tracery with a similarly styled main entrance;
* the architectural quality is also expressed in the exterior of the rear service range which is similarly detailed with ogee-headed windows terminating in an attractive polygonal garden pavilion;
* a handsome three-storey building, whose scale and massing are well-handled to create a prominent landmark building on the town’s main street;
* the mid-C18 plan-form is largely retained in which the hierarchies of spaces, including the service areas, are clearly legible;
* a quality, unifying mid-C18 interior with plaster work and joinery, the latter including an original King-Post roof structure, stair cases, six-panel doors, and shutters that reflect the detail of the window heads.

Historic interest:

* constructed for the politician John Robinson, who became MP for Westmorland and served in the administration of Lord North.

Group value:

* it benefits from a functional, historic and spatial group value with the adjacent Grade II-listed former outbuilding, coach house/stable range and the attached Grade II-listed garden walls and summerhouse;
* it benefits from a spatial group value with numerous listed buildings of all grades framing Boroughgate, the main medieval and current thoroughfare in Appleby.

External Links

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