Whiteford House
country house in Stokeclimsland, Cornwall, England, UK

Whiteford House was an English country house near Stoke Climsland, Cornwall. It was built in 1775 by John Call and demolished in 1913.
History
There had been a house at Whiteford since around the 13th century, owned by various families. The estate was sold to John Call in 1763. His son, also named John, became High Sheriff of Cornwall in 1771, and built Whiteford House in 1775 after returning from working in the East India Company. It was described as having "a handsome front" and as well as being lavishly designed, the house included a "looking-glass room" where a post boy was reportedly held prisoner by a parlour maid.
Little of the house survives. Some fragments are incorporated in the house of the agent of the home farm, i.e. a Tuscan Doric porch and some tripartite windows. Call's descendants retained ownership of the house until 1870.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 11, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7995917. Authority coordinates are 50.546, -4.316. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1775, 1913, 1763 and 1771.
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This entry incorporates text from “Whiteford House” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.