Cann Hall

Cann Hall is a house built around 1512 for St Osyth's Priory, with some alterations made in the 18th century and refenestration in the 20th century. The building features a timber frame that is plastered, with close-studding mostly concealed and brick nogging infill on the south front. It has a red plain tiled roof that is hipped with gablets and an off-centre left red brick chimney stack. The house consists of a two-bay hall aligned east-west, with a service end to the east and an upper end cross-wing to the west that projects to the north. The hall and parlour are heated by an original stack, and there is a continuous jetty on the south front. To the north, there are fragmentary remains of another timber-framed building, likely a detached kitchen, which is now attached to the main house.

The house is two storeys high, with five windows on the main front's first floor featuring 20th-century two and three-light casements, and three 20th-century oriels on the ground floor. There is a vertically boarded door with an original segmental head to the right. Inside, the building has an exposed frame of high quality, including open fireplaces, an elaborate hall ceiling with a transverse beam adorned with highly ornate oak-leaf stops, two axial beams with elaborate moulding, and a crown post roof that retains traces of reddish ochre color.

After the suppression of St Osyth's Priory in 1539, Cann Hall was passed to Thomas Cromwell, then to Princess Mary, and later to Lord Darcy in 1553. Dendrochronological analysis of 36 timbers from the hall, service range, cross-wing, and kitchen range has established a tree-ring chronology dating from AD 1301 to 1511, with the latest timbers felled in the winter/spring of AD 1511/12.