The property is a Grade I listed building, reflecting its importance "as part of the Flatford Mill group" and "its significance in the work of the artist John Constable".
[3] The cottage is located on the bank of the River Stour, just downstream from Flatford Mill in the heart of Dedham Vale, a typically English rural landscape.
Flatford Mill, along with neighbouring Valley Farm and Bridge Cottage, are leased to the Field Studies Council, which uses them as locations for arts-based courses such as painting, and as accommodation for science-based courses such as residential ecology trips for students up to A-level.
The cottage takes its name from its resident at the time John Constable did his paintings, when the house was known as Gibeons Gate Farm.
William Lott (1761–1849), a tenant farmer, lived at Gibeons Farm and spent only four nights away from this house in his life.