URPoint Details
No facilities. Difficult to park outside house. House: one step to front door, which opens onto street all ground floor rooms accessible first floor not suitable for disabled visitors via steep staircase. Garden has easy access. Wheelchair users should give advance notice of their visit.
An early 16th century half-timbered town house, built by the wealthy wool merchant John Paycocke on the occasion of his son Thomas's marriage. Coggeshall was a major cloth-making town in Tudor times, and the prosperity and commercial success of the Paycocke family is reflected in the elaborate decoration of the house.
Its then owner, Lord Buxton, a descendant of the family, which had occupied it during the late 16th century, restored Paycocke in 1905. Lord Buxton gave the house to the National Trust in 1925. The long, close-studded street facade has 5 oriels on the upper floor. Below, a beam running its full length, is carved with a variety of curious figures, including an upside-down dragon, a head on a flower stalk, and a small person apparently diving into a lily.
The interior has superb wood carvings, including a magnificent ceiling in the great hall which carries the merchant mark of the
- Type:
- Landmark