The White House, Newark
Client: British Waterways
The White House is a prominent grade II listed building that fronts Mill Gate - a street that was historically part of the Roman Fosse Way, which passed through Newark on a north-east/south-west alignment. The property appears externally as a substantial, predominantly Georgian building, with later additions. Its walled grounds, which extend back from Mill gate to the River Trent, contain the remains of a landscaped garden, a series of associated brick outbuildings and a derelict boathouse. The White House was converted into flats in the 1960s.
The heritage assessment was prepared for British Waterways, to provide the basis for the long-term conservation-led management of the property by both current and possible future custodians.
CgMs’ study presents an understanding and interpretation of the site and its structures, through careful examination of the buildings and their stylistic details, together with analysis of documentary resources, cartographic evidence, and an appreciation of the historical and archaeological merit of the area in which it sits. The report also provides an appreciation of the building’s current condition through the undertaking of a room-by-room recording and photographic fabric archive exercise.
The research established that the site had been developed in three main construction phases, during the late eighteenth-century, nineteenth-century (during which time a malt-house had been removed), and the early to mid twentieth-century. Interestingly, the latter phase included the insertion by a wealthy industrialist of a number of fake period fittings, including a grand staircase, fireplaces and panelling. The research showed that the property is located close to the line of the town’s Civil War defences and that the site has significant archaeological potential.
