Post-Covid Staycation
We visited The White House, Munslow, in May 2022 and these images represent a new stage in the Staycation series – a Post-Covid period where many of the legal obligations have been replaced with Covid Safe guidelines.
The White House
The White House, near Craven Arms, is characterful, higgledy piggledy, mixture of architectural styles and building phases.
The grade II* listed building is hardly visible from the road but, approaching from the rear, the first view is of a 15th/16th Century black and white half timbered hall house supported by cruck trusses. To the left of this is a 16th/17th century farm house style kitchen and dairy extension with an 18th century Georgian style extension added to the rear, This doubles as a new frontage and is accessible by a path leading from the road below.
What makes this more quirky than expected is that each new phase of development appears to have been added with almost no internal remodelling or integration – you literally step from one development phase into the next as you move thorough the building.
In the grounds is also the ruin of a a 14th Century Dovecote. The 4.8m building originally had 500 nest holes for pigeons – which were bred for meat. The Dovecote is a scheduled ancient monument.
History
The house was the home of the Stedman’s for three hundred years, eventually passing by marriage to other owners. It was sold to Walter Purser in 1947 and his daughter, Miss J. C. Purser, went on to run the building as ‘County Life Museum’ until, in her 80s, when she passed the building to the Landmark Trust. Many of the museum displays and artefacts remain in place.
View these images in Flickr:
-30-
All images © W N BISHOP
You must be logged in to post a comment.