Pepys House

This is a house dating from the late 16th or early 17th century, with later 17th, 18th, and 20th-century additions creating a linked range to the rear. The original structure is timber-framed and rendered, with a projecting first floor, and was underpinned with brick in the 18th century. It has a tiled roof with a red brick ridge stack and a later 17th-century gable end stack. The layout comprises three bays, with a narrower stair bay or through-passage between the hall and the original service end. The house is two storeys and has an attic, featuring two hipped dormers with horizontal sliding sash windows. The front has three 20th-century three-light casement windows and one original casement with diamond mullions. Further 20th-century matching casements and a door likely occupy the site of the original hall entry.

A two-bay, two-storey early 17th-century timber-framed addition exists at the rear. An 18th-century red brick range, parallel to the main house and extending to the southwest, was added at this time, also with a tiled roof extending over the earlier rear range and featuring a tumbled gable end. This range includes a sunken dairy. It contains flush frame hung sashes with glazing bars in open boxing.

Internally, much of the original detail survives, although alterations occurred when the house was acquired by the Pepys Society. The wall framing shows both curved and straight downward bracing, and the scarf joints in the wall plate are edge halved and bridle butted. The first floor chamber above the hall was originally open to the roof, with a ceiling inserted in the 17th century. This room and the one adjoining contain fragments of 17th-century wall paintings. One first-floor room has an original four-light casement with diamond mullions and iron casements, retaining original glazing. Two inglenook hearths remain; one in the hall features studwork painted on the plaster above the lintel, while the inglenook in the room to the west is a 17th-century addition. The attic contains an original plank door, and a small early 17th-century cupboard door is found in a ground-floor room, originally the parlour. The 18th-century extension includes a late 18th-century cornice and dado in a first-floor room. The house was the residence of members of the Pepys family, and Samuel Pepys spent part of his childhood there.