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====== White Horse ======
The White Horse was a former inn on [[Church Street]] situated next to the [[Guildhall]] on the north side, stretching as far back as West Street. After its closure in the early 1800s, the site became tenements, while the name was carried over for a new public house in Dovercourt.

===== Summary =====

==== Pre-1674 ====
The White Horse was previously known as the King's Arms, and tenants in the 17th century included Richard Walters, John Chamberlain, and Richard Sparrow.  Some time between 1650 and 1665 the name was altered.

==== From 1674 ====
The very same lease that describes the acquisition of the Guildhall by the Corporation of Harwich says of a "//messuage late of John Bateman, now of William Peck called 'The White Horse'//".  Bateman came from a family of glaziers, while Peck plied his trade as a shipwright and also held land on the east side of town.

==== 18th Century ====
While the White Horse did not have the status of inns such as the Three Cups and White Hart, it still played its part in town affairs, hosting sales and auctions, as well as notable people of the time such as eminent doctors.

==== The Boltons ====

By the late 18th century, the Bolton family had taken over at the White Horse, and they were to be the last family to do so at Harwich.  After the death of the head, Henry Bolton, in 1789, it passed to his wife Elizabeth, and on her death in 1801 to their last surviving heir, daughter Sarah, who had married William Searles in 1792.  Sarah became ill and died in April 1803, at which point the White Horse ceased trading.

==== Post-1803 ====

The exact details of what happened after Sarah's death are unclear, but it seems as though her widower William sold off the White Horse (or the lease had expired), moved to Dovercourt, and set up a pub of the same name there instead.  The first confirmed publican of Dovercourt's White Horse, John Davison, was a Harwich man who married Mary Searles in 1810, most certainly William's relative.  Much like its predecessor, Dovercourt's White Horse existed for a couple of centuries before closing in 2009.

As for Harwich, by 1808 the site had already been converted into multiple premises known as White Horse Yard; an auction from that year describes the site as extending "//from Church-street to West-street, being in length 150 feet, or thereabout, and 22 feet in breadth//".  The site survived until the 1930s, when it began to succumb to the beautifying process that was prevalent at the time.
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