A painted wooden tea caddy in the shape of a small four-sided house with a hinged lid.

The box bottom is set into grooves near the bottom of each of the four sides. A piece of loosely woven coarse green fabric is stuck to and covers the underside of the box bottom. The four sides of the box are butt-jointed to one another with mitre joints probably secured with glue. The box lid comprises four upright sides (long and thin at front and back, taller and triangular at each side) mitred to each other and probably also secured with glue. The two sloping roof panels sit on top of and slightly protrude over the edge of the sides of the lid and the rest of the box. The lid sides may slot into grooves in the underside of the roof panels, or they may simply butt up to them and be fixed with glue. At the centre of the pitched roof is a small square chimney which is tenoned down through the join of the roof panels.

The interior of the box, including the lid, is lined with silvered paper which seems to be original. The box is divided into two equally sized compartments. Each of these is built up on the inside face of their outer side to form a ledge about half way up. The central divider and ledges are probably simply wedged in place and secured with glue although the silver paper lining obscures this from view.

The exterior of the box is painted to resemble a thatched cottage with yellow walls, bluish-green woodworkon windows and doors, mullioned windows, surrounding trees and shrubbery and a woman holding a rake. The design and painterly style are fairly rudimentary and it is not clear whether the box was painted by an amateur or a professional hand. For the most part the decoration is comprised of thin dark outlines with blocks of lighter colour all on a plain yellow ground. The trees and shrubbery may be spongework and the roof has been painted with many long strokes of the brush to resemble the texture of a thatched roof.

The front face of the box depicts a half wooden, half glazed door in the middle with one window above it and two further windows, one above the other, on either side of the door. The window above the door is depicted as being wide open and a keyhole is set within the blacked out void of the window itself. At either end of the front face of the box is a tall tree. To the left of the door a ladder and a rake lean against the wall of the house and immediately to the right of the door is a woman dressed in a blue smock and pinkish-blue skirt, wearing a broad-rimmed hat and holding a smaller rake in her right hand. The sides of the box are both painted with a single window at first floor level and shrubbery on the ground. The back of the box is painted with a single wooden door in the middle at ground floor level, low lying shrubbery on either side of this and immediately to the left of the door a tall tree reaching up to just below roof level.