Sampton Wick
Grade II listed
Early C14 hall house, with crosswing. Timber framed and plastered with red
plain tile roof. Two storeys to cross wing, remainder one storey and attics.
1:3 window range modern casements. One gabled dormer. Crosswing is gabled
with modern exposed timbers, and jettied on curved brackets. Modern extension
to south-west plastered with red plain tile roof. Some late C19 brick underbuilding
at rear. Internally features include C17 inserted first floor in hall, C14 ogee
door head, and C14 crown post roof to crosswing.
historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1266664

Sampton Wick in 1995

Much of the last 200 years' history of this Peldon farmhouse was researched by a former owner, Pat Moore (formerly Sanderson), who bought the house in 1972, raised her family in the village and was to stay for over 40 years. Pat was kind enough to let me see her unpublished manuscript written in 1995. She spent hours at the Essex Record Office, she spoke to anyone who had lived there and had experts in Historic Buildings assess the architecture.

Sampton Wick, formerly White House Farm, on the western edge of Peldon on the Wigborough Road, is one of the few remaining very ancient farmhouses in the village of Peldon. Of the surviving medieval hall houses, Sampton Wick, Peldon Hall, Home Farm and Priest's House (only one wing survives) are the earliest, believed to have been built during the 1300s. All of these hall houses would have been built before houses had chimneys, having a fire in the middle of the floor with the smoke percolating out through small louvres in the roof and the unglazed narrow windows. According to a report on the house by an expert in timber-framed buildings, Mrs Ann Padfield, although some of the timbers have been replaced there is at least one sooted rafter dating to the time before the farmhouse had a chimney.

Pat told me the architectural historian noted the presence of unusual 'cruck blades' in the roof. Cruck construction of houses was most common in the west of England and hardly any examples exist in Essex.

In cruck houses, an oak with a stout lower branch would be split and the two 'mirror image' pieces joined to make an 'A' shaped frame. It is thought that the way trees were managed in the east of England by coppicing meant mature trees of the required size and shape did not exist here.

Long considered to be a more primitive building style than that of high-status houses, the cruck blades in Sampton Wick led the architectural historian to surmise it had been built for an artisan such as a weaver.

We were told when we bought it that it had been a weaver's house, this is not impossible as there was an influx of Flemish weavers to the area in the fourteenth century. Pat Moore: unpublished history

As we shall see 3 acres of the land belonging to the farm was copyhold of the Manor of Copt Hall at Little Wigborough. Copyhold was a kind of leasehold and all property transference had to go through the manorial court and incurred certain services and fees. The rest of the farm was in Peldon and freehold.

Pat refers to a pond and to a creek; the latter is no longer there but its course can still be seen in the 1799 map of Peldon extending right up to what is now Lower Road in the village. [ref: www.oldmapsonline.org search for 'Witham' 1799]

In the garden there is a large pond about one-third of an acre in size, not unusual in itself except that it is 20ft deep and quite steep-sided; it may have been a quarry for brick clay or perhaps it had some other purpose. In the gardens of Games Farm next door, and on a sweep of the creek that once passed both properties before the building of the sea wall, there is the remains of a Roman Quay. So Peldon was a port of sorts at one time.

Interestingly, in an 1824 description of the farm it refers to ponds for store fish.

Anecdotally, in 1954, it was only when Ronnie Fisher, a local builder, had started work on the badly dilapidated farmhouse that he saw, within it a structure of great antiquity and he stopped short of demolishing it, saving what he could; Pat tells me it was larger than it is today.

So what did it look like? There is a black and white postcard of a house with what is clearly a much older house at the back. The postcard is marked 'Peldon 23'. Following an appeal in the village news in November 2024, Pat Moore e mailed me to say she was certain it was the White House judging by the open views at the back and the two yew trees to the left of the photograph.

The White House before the front section was demolished in the 1950s.

Looking up the 1897 Ordnance Survey map of Peldon, it would seem that the shape of the house on the map corresponds exactly with the photograph. When the front section was built has not been discovered but could the description of the house in an 1824 auction advertisement suggest the house had recently been 'adapted'?

a most desirable residence facing the high road, from which
it is approached by a carriage sweep and lawn in front, and is
planned and adapted to the reception of a respectable family;
[Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser 16th August 1824]

The same shape of the farmhouse appears again in the Ordnance Survey map of 1923.

Another question is when the outbuildings were demolished - the OS map of 1897 only indicates one small outbuilding.

The Ordnance Survey map of 1897

Sadly, any deeds which did exist have not been found but Ronnie Fisher, the builder, remembered one deed which referred to Sampton Wick (the former ancient name of another Peldon farm, now 'Sampson's') which sounded so attractive he adopted it for the renovated house.

The name White House Farm is first found in an 1824 advertisement for a farm auction, it is also named on the Peldon tithe map of 1838 and appears in a few nineteenth and early twentieth century censuses and mid nineteenth century electoral rolls but has so far not been found in any earlier documents.

The earliest occupier of White House Farm found in Pat's research was, by deduction, Samuel Bullock. At least the third generation of carpenters in Peldon bearing the name of Bullock, he was so successful he became a significant employer and property owner in the village.

In the Parish Surveyors Book red D/P 287/21/2 in Colchester there is a list of landowners and tenants and the rentable value of their property, this is dated 1780 and shows by a process of elimination that Whitehouse was then occupied by Samuel Bullock. [Pat Moore: unpublished history]

It would appear the May family subsequently owned the farm in the early nineteenth century according to a history written by one of the family, Catherine F Burgess, The History of the Bean Family. [see Page 34 ]

[Thomas May] had 2 brothers: Edward who married Mrs Clarke [Clark] (formerly Miss Messingote [Mazengarb] ) and they lived at Copped [Copt] Hall, Little Wigborough... Mr May's second brother John died at the White House, Peldon, and was buried at West Mersea. He had 4 sons who kept hounds and lived gay lives

Edward May, who died in 1808, bequeathed to John May 'my Elder brother' his farm on Mersea and also my Freehold and Copyhold Messuages Tenements Farms Lands and Hereditaments in the several parishes of Peldon and Little Wigborough [ERO D/ABW 117/3751]

He also bequeathed his lease on 'Copped Hall' in Little Wigborough whose land abutted White House Farm along with the growing crops on its land.

We can only presume White House Farm in Peldon with part of its acreage in Little Wigborough, although unnamed in the will, was one of the bequests made by Edward to his brother, for, as Catherine Burgess relates, John died in White House Farm. A note on his will confirms

The Testator died in the Parish of Peldon [ERO D/ABW 124/1/7]

It is likely, however, that the farm had previously belonged to the brothers' father; again, although unnamed in his will, it is described as a mix of freehold land and copyhold land, the latter in Little Wigborough.

Their father was Edward May (described as being of Great Wigborough) and in his will, written in 1794 and proved in 1795 he bequeaths to his son Edward

... a freehold farm in Peldon ...occupied by me...and I do hereby give and devise unto him the 3 acres of Copyhold Land ... which ... lye in the Parish of Little Wigborough ... and are holden of the Manor of Coppid Hall [National Archives PROB 11/1256]

His son John May died in 1821; in his will, written in 1818 and proved in 1822, [ERO D/ABW 124/1/7] John is referred to as 'John The Elder of Little Wigborough', and he bequeaths all his lands and property to his wife Susan for life. After her death the whole estate is to be equally divided between their sons, John May of Great Wigborough, James May of Peldon and William May of Copt Hall - all farmers - the fourth son, Edward, is under 21 in 1818 and presumably still living with his mother.

In 1824, two years after John May's will was proved, an auction of White House Farm was held.

The newspapers are a great source of information when farms changed hands, the farms are often sold by auction and the 'Live and Dead' stock of the outgoing farmer sold following the sale of the property. Here, a detailed description of the farm is given accompanying the auction notice for the farm in 1824.

Valuable and Desirable Freehold Estate,
called WHITEHOUSE FARM,
containing One Hundred and Forty Acres of good sound Arable and Pasture Land,
lying in the Parish
of Peldon, in the County of Essex.
By Mr. W.W.SIMPSON
At GARRAWAY'S COFFEE-HOUSE, CORNHILL.,
In the Month of SEPTEMBER next, in One Lot, by Order of
the Proprietors,
A Very Valuable and Desirable FREEHOLD
ESTATE, possessing in point of situation and soil, many
advantages, delightfully situated in the pleasant village of Peld-
don, lying immediately contiguous to Brick House, Sampson's
and Newport FARMS, known as White House Farm, containing
One Hundred and Forty Acres of rich Arable and Pasture Land,
with a most desirable residence facing the high road, from which
it is approached by a carriage sweep and lawn in front, and is
planned and adapted to the reception of a respectable family;
also a productive kitchen garden, an orchard well planted with
choice fruit trees, and ponds for store fish. The Agricultural
Buildings are well arranged and in good repair, and comprise a
capital Barn, Riding and Cart-horse Stables, Chaise-house and
Granary over, Cow-house, Brew-house, Cart-shed, and other
out-buildings. The contiguity of the Estate with Brick House,
Sampsons, and Newports Farms, offers an eligible opportunity
for the investment of capital. The Estate will be sold subject
to a lease being granted to a highly respectable tenant, for a
term of 11 or 21 years, at a rental which will be stated in the
Particulars.
Particulars may be had in due time, of J.G. Sarjeant, Esq.
Colchester, and of Mr. W.W. Simpson, 24, Bucklersbury,
London
[Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser 16th August 1824]

This is an important document for it gives the acreage of Sampton Wick then; the land extended to 140 acres and there was a barn, chaise house, stables and cow house amongst other agricultural buildings, none of which have survived.

Only two weeks later all four farms mentioned above appear in a similar advertisement being auctioned as one lot, their overall area totalling 626 acres.

In the 1851 census the farm is listed as White House. John Reynolds, an agricultural worker aged 72, his wife Phoebe, son and daughter-in-law, John and Anne, and their seven children lived there.

The earlier census in 1841 doesn't give house names but John Reynolds is described as a farm bailiff - it is quite possible he and his family were already at White House Farm then working for the tenant farmers, Stephen Waller and Henry Woodward, brothers-in-law, who also had leases on Brick House and 'Newports' Farms.

In 1852 we find a Live and Dead Stock sale advertised by Messrs. Woodward and Waller who were giving up the leases on Brick House, Newports and White House.

At Peldon, near Colchester
EXTENSIVE SALE
OF
FARMING LIVE AND DEAD STOCK
At the Brick House Farm, Peldon.
TO BE SOLD BY AUCTION
By J.S. Surridge & Son
On Friday 24th September, 1852, at Half-past Ten
o'Clock, by direction of Messrs. Woodward and
Waller, whose lease terminates this Michaelmas
ALL their valuable LIVE and DEAD STOCK, on
the Brick House, Newports, and White House
Farms.
[Essex Herald 7th September 1852]

Stephen Overall, was the next tenant of the three Peldon farms subsequent to Woodward and Waller. In the Kelly's trade directory of 1855 Joseph Snow, his son-in-law, with whom he was in business is listed as farmer of White House Farm although judging by the censuses the farmhouse was occupied by farmworkers.

In the 1861 census there are three households living in the farm. Mary Wood a retired farmer aged 77, William Pooley's family, he is listed as an agricultural labourer and church clerk, and the third household is William Lungley's family; he is also an agricultural worker and comes from Jersey.

There are two households living there in 1871 an elderly man of 79, Martin Harvey, with no occupation and George Ponder, a boarder and agricultural labourer and his family.

White House Farm then appears on the Ordnance Survey of 1875.

In 1878 the newspaper advertises a Live and Dead Stock sale by the executors of Stephen Overall.

PELDON
Brick House, Newports, & White House
Farms
TO BE SOLD BY AUCTION
By Mr. Clear
On Friday next, Sept.27th, 1878 by direction of the
Executors of the late Mr. Stephen Overall
All the Valuable LIVE and DEAD FARMING
STOCK, comprising :-
15 Powerful Young Cart Horses
The Bay Entire Horse 'Boxer'
5 2-year-old and Yearling Colts,
4 Suckerels,
2 Nag Mares
Chestnut Cob, quiet to ride and drive
Bay Cob
10 Shorthorn Cows and Heifers, in milk and
in calf
Red and White Yearling Bull
18 Steers and Heifers
4 Fat Calves
2 Sows
15 Strong Shoats
100 Head of Poultry
The usual assortment of AGRICULTURAL
IMPLEMENTS, comprising 5 wagons, 7 tumbrels,
6 iron ploughs and whippletrees, 5 sets of iron and
wood harrows, broadshare, 2 horse hoes, horse rake,
turn over fall shovel, scarifier, double tom, iron
grubber, 4-horse power threshing machine with barn-
works, 3-horse power chaff cutter, with root pulper,
bean mill, &c., root pulper, oilcake breaker, iron and
wood rolls, 14-coulter lever drill (Smyth), water butt
on carriage and iron wheels, bullock mangers, feed-
ing troughs, iron pig troughs, ladders, cart and
plough harness, tools &c., weather boarded and
thatched henhouse, ditto slaughter house, ditto
chaisehouse with folding doors, a few lots of
HOUSEHOLD FURNITURE, 2-wheel car, soci-
able, set of light harness, riding saddle and bridle
beer casks, brewing utensils, and various effects, at
Brick House Farm.
Sale to begin at Ten for Eleven o'clock
[Essex Herald 24th September 1878]

In 1881 two households are listed in White House Farm, Frederick Nice a machinist (this was agricultural machinery) his wife and two daughters and also Henry Smith, an agricultural worker, his tailoress wife, Angelina, and a son and daughter.

It was a member of the Nice family, Charles, who was able to give an eye-witness account of the 1884 earthquake and how it affected White House. The account appears as a footnote in The Great English Earthquake by Peter Haining.

I learned of one further narrow escape as I was completing this book from an actual eye-witness, ninety-one year old Mr Charles Nice, who was just a year old at the time. He was living in the White House and was sitting in a high chair in front of the fire when the earthquake occurred. Bricks fell down the chimney and covered him with soot from head to foot. It also caused the front door lintel of the house to go lopsided and this remained untouched until 1941/2 when the owners at that time decided to straight it as they felt it might detract from the selling value of the house. But according to Mr Crisp's daughter, Mrs M Carter, 'when my father told them the earthquake had caused it, they were very sorry they had not left it as it was!'

Pat Moore also met Charles Nice and she recalls

In the course of conversation he told me that his family went to the village pump for water, which is strange because during alterations to the house we found a lovely well, situated just by the back wall of the house. It was built to be a covered well and was presumably pumped straight into the kitchen. He was also able to tell me the position of the stairs, in the now missing section of the house, and the layout of the rooms. It would seem that Whitehouse was not as badly damaged [in the earthquake] as many of the buildings in Peldon although the front door was left a bit skew-whiff.

Frederick Nice is still there in 1891, an engine driver of threshing machines, with his wife, son, daughter and aunt and next door the Talbots - William Talbot his wife, daughter, grandchild, sister-in-law and a lodger.

In 1901, William Talbot, still an agricultural labourer at 70 is living in White House with his wife and granddaughter. In the other half is his son, Stephen, with his wife, three daughters and two sons

In 1911 William is still there, an OAP, with his granddaughter and in the other half of the house is his son, Stephen, an agricultural labourer and his family, wife, two daughters and a son.

In the 1918 electoral roll, Stephen Talbot and his wife Florence are still there as is William Greenleaf, Stephen's son-in-law who was the village blacksmith.

The 1921 census reveals both families are still there, telling us that Stephen Talbot and his son George Henry both worked as agricultural labourers for Mr. Fairhead, one of the principal local farmers who lived at Brick House Farm. Stephen's wife Florence was a shop assistant at the village shop, known then as 'The Stores'. We learn that William Greenleaf was working as a blacksmith for Powell and Mason, Wheelwrights and Smiths, at the forge over the road from the farm.

In the 1929 electoral roll William Greenleaf and his wife, Eva Annie, are living in the White House with Stephen and Florence and their three children.

There is an advert in The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer on 5th June 1937 which describes the house.

A lovely old-world house in country near sea offers every comfort in happy atmosphere, golf, yachting, bathing obtainable, 2 gns Mrs. Stone The White House, Peldon, Essex

Who Mrs Stone was remains to be discovered; was she a housekeeper of the Booth family who lived there in the 1930s?

The Booths were living in The White House in the 1939 register, Winifred M Booth as head of household, her son, Peter Bernard Booth, a medical student, and daughter Josephine Mary Booth, a poultry farmer whose subsequent married name, Scales, is also given. There are two names blacked out who may be people who are still alive - it is possible it was two evacuees from east London. Peter served during the war in the Royal Army Medical Corps and Josephine was to serve in the Peldon branch of the Women's Land Army between 1942 and 1946.

Kay Gilmour, in her history of Peldon states that The White House was used for evacuated wounded in the Second World War.

The house had clearly fallen into disrepair and during Mrs Booth's time, Pat Moore relates

it is reported, [she] had to sit with an umbrella up when it rained.

Winifred Booth died in 1956 and she is described on the probate as 'of The White House' although she actually died at Ransomes Farm in Peldon.

The next occupants after the Booths appear to have been the Buckles. Kennedy Buckle was the son of Colonel Cuthbert Buckle and in the 1939 register was living with his parents and his wife, Mary Dodsworth Butler at The Hall, East Mersea.

Born in 1912, Cuthbert Kennedy Hotine Buckle was a student at Cambridge University in the 1930s. He married Mary Dodsworth Butler in 1935 at West Mersea Church. Described as a 'picturesque wedding' the newspaper coverage referred to bride and groom being

well known in the district, the former as a highly qualified domestic science teacher and the latter for his prowess in the rowing world....[he]obtained his rowing blue in the record-breaking Cambridge crew of last year [Essex Chronicle 1st February 1935]

When exactly Kennedy and his wife lived at the White House is not known but it would appear after the Booths and before the Scales family. Kennedy's father stayed in Mersea until his death in 1971 living at Galiots, now 76, Coast Road, West Mersea with his second wife, Lettie. It would appear that Kennedy returned to West Mersea with his wife, she is listed as living at The Grange (now 102 Coast Road) in 1968 and in 1973 they are both listed in the electoral register.

Some time prior to 1954, White House Farm's 64 acres was being farmed by the Scales family. New Zealand born Edward Scales, his wife Victoria and children lived in Harvey's Farm almost opposite The White House. In 1946 their son, Arthur (Joe) Scales married Josephine Mary Booth daughter of Albert Cecil Booth and Mrs Winifred Maud Booth of the White House and that year another son, George Scales, took over the family farm.

By 1954 White House Farm and four acres had been sold to the builder, Ronnie Fisher.

[Sampton Wick] had obviously fallen into such a bad state of repair that it was sold to Mr Fisher, the builder, to rescue as best he could. [Pat Moore unpublished history]

In my own deeds (my bungalow was built on land belonging to Games Farm, which was next door to White House) there is a map from a 1955 conveyance. This records when the farmland belonging to The White House was acquired by the farmers of Games Farm, Roger and Janet Carr. The land belonging to White House Farm is coloured in green. Leaving just a garden around the house, this ended White House's use as a working farm.

In 1955 George Scales sold Harvey's Farm to Bill Bruton, a young farmer who had completed a year's training under George Scales at Harvey's Farm before going to Writtle Agricultural College. Bill Bruton was to go on to farm Games Farm with all the newly acquired acreage from White House Farm buying it from the widowed Janet Carr in 1959.

George was to move to Abbess Roding where he would stay for the rest of his life, naming his farm there after one of the fields at Harvey's Farm, 'Cobblers Piece'.

Mr Kennedy Buckle, then Mr Scales, followed by Mr and Mrs Komlosy and most lately *, the Sandersons [us] comprise the list of owners since this once rather grand farmhouse became once more a cottage, now, by the name of Sampton Wick. At what stage the farm buildings were demolished I do not know but no one has mentioned them to me in all their reminiscences of the house, so I presume it was in the early part of this [20th] century. [Pat Moore unpublished history]

* the Sandersons sold to the current owners.

Following building work, the farmhouse, was sold to the Komlosys who lived there in the 1960s and 1970s.Their son, Stephen, was an agent for pop stars and he was subsequently to meet and marry the singer Patti Boulaye; their marriage is feted as being one of the longest-lasting celebrity marriages. It was in 1964, that the Komlosys were to host a visit to Sampton Wick by the Rolling Stones after one of two concerts at the Odeon in Colchester in September of that year.

In 1972 the Sandersons bought the farmhouse from the Komlosys and stayed there for over 40 years before selling to the current owners. Pat tells me she and her husband built the west wing (on the left of the photo below).

The rear of Sampton Wick in 1995

It would seem, in Victorian times up until the 1930s, those who lived in White House were tenants, but who were the owners, the absentee landlords?

It is the electoral registers between 1845 and 1863, which name the owner of White House and the adjacent Newpots and Brick House Farms as Wyatt George Gibson, a wealthy landowner from Saffron Walden. They were all described as freehold farms.

It is likely Wyatt George Gibson bought Brick House, Newpots and Sampsons - The Brick House Estate - in 1824 at auction and that at exactly the same time as buying the Brick House Estate, he bought White House Farm from John May's executors. When he died in 1862 unnamed Peldon farms were bequeathed to his son George Stacey Gibson who died in 1883. He in turn bequeathed unnamed Peldon farms to his cousin, Edmund Birch Gibson who died in 1911.

Three generations of the Gibson family held land in Peldon, and in 1920 Mary Wyatt Gibson, spinster, is shown in the rolls of the Manor of the Rectory of Peldon, to be accepted as tenant to some Glebe land, so she must have still been an active landowner in Peldon. She was the daughter of George Stacey Gibson and granddaughter of Wyatt George Gibson and visited Whitehouse Farm occasionally as shown by a letter from her amongst the, now missing, deeds which refers to a visit and some lost gloves. [Pat Moore unpublished history]

These then were all the written references to White House I could find, the earliest being the mention in the 1824 auction advertisement and the last in the 1939 register. Circumstantial evidence would point to it being in the possession of Edward May at the time of his death in 1795 and before that Samuel Bullock.

Following the documentary evidence discovered, oral history has filled in the gaps to the present day including the change of name to Sampton Wick by builder Ronnie Fisher.

Today Sampton Wick just has its gardens surrounding it and all the farmland is farmed by Robert Davidson (Robert Davidson & Son Ltd) at Brick House Farm along with land belonging to Newpots, Sampsons, Ransomes and Grove Farm (the latter being situated mainly in Little Wigborough).

To take the farm's history further back in time I need to know the name it was known by before it became The White House. Possible contenders include 'Wolvetts' and 'Webbe's', the former named in several wills, the latter the name of a family prominent in Peldon in the 15th century who held Wolvetts and were possibly in the cloth trade.

Research is ongoing!

Elaine Barker
Peldon History Project

Thanks to Pat Moore and Tony Millatt

Peldon History Project
More Peldon History.