Peckover House

Peckover House is a fine house built in 1722, located on North Brink in Wisbech. It is constructed of local amber brick with red brick and gauged red brick details, with lead roofs and four internal side stacks. The building is three storeys tall with a half-basement, arranged on a square plan of five bays.

The front elevation displays giant pilasters at the quoins, a panelled parapet with stone copings, and a moulded, dentil-enriched cornice of gauged brick. Gauged brick bands run between floors, while vertical red brick bands link the windows with gauged brick aprons and segmental arches. The windows are twelve-paned hung sashes that decrease in height at each floor, with some being original to the 18th century. There are four basement windows. The centrepiece is a fine central doorcase of oolitic limestone with rusticated jambs and a dentil-enriched segmental pediment, reached by four stone steps. The entrance door has eight raised and fielded panels and a round-headed fanlight with interlacing glazing bars.

The garden elevation features a fine stone staircase with balustrade leading to a pedimented doorcase with a Venetian window and three-light lunette above, both possibly inserted in the mid-18th century. A late 18th-century single-storey bank with a hipped roof survives in part, masked by the garden wall. The original openings to this bank have been blocked, though a strong room survives at basement level and a small safe under the floorboards. Shelving at ceiling height possibly served for ledgers.

The house was extended with flanking wings attributed to Algenon Peckover in 1878 and designed by Edward Boardman of Norwich, with further work around 1890. These wings are single-storey, curved in plan, and built of matching materials. The eastern wing has a parapet with two single-light and one three-light hung sash windows with slender paired columnar mullions. The western wing has a similar elevation but includes an open porch to the original late 18th-century side entrance.

The interior decoration is particularly noteworthy, representing two periods. Early work may have been carried out by craftsmen from Houghton Hall, Norfolk, while Palladian and Rococo work dating to around 1760 was executed by the Southwell family. All rooms retain original panelling, window cases with shutters and window seats, richly ornamented chimney pieces, pedimented doorcases, and ceiling cornices. Doors are six-panelled with original brass locks (night locks in bedrooms) and hinges. Archways feature panelled soffits and pilasters.

The staircase is particularly fine, with a Vitruvian scroll string repeated as a band. The staircase hall has a Venetian window and an outstanding coffered plaster ceiling featuring ribbon work, foliage, shells, and a 'free' foliage lamp boss. A servants' stair with a closed string, slender balusters, and pine rail also survives. Pine floors are throughout, with the hall floor being geometric limestone with black Belgian marble setts.

The eastern wing was originally furnished as a library for Algenon Peckover. The service basement is brick-vaulted and includes a kitchen with a large cooking hearth and an early 20th-century cooking range made in Wisbech, an original lead-lined sink, seats to the servants' hall, and a limestone floor.

Peckover House has been the property of the National Trust since 1948, having originally become home to the Peckover banking family from 1877.