24, 25 and 26 Kings Head Street

This article is about numbers 24, 25 and 26 Kings Head Street. Although these are three discreet properties today their combined history goes back to the 15th century and they were originally interconnected as a grand mansion.

24 to 26 Kings Head Street in the 16th Century

Although it is not a listed building number 24 is the oldest surviving part of the buildings that once stood on the quay on the eastern side of Kings Head Street.

This relatively modest building formed the timber-framed cross wing of a hall house that once stood next door. The partial timber frame is still visible inside today and reveals a medieval doorway into the Alma.

The main part of the Alma Inn at 25 Kings Head Street is the rebuilt middle section of a grand mansion. It was constructed around 1530 and probably replaced an older hall on the site. The 16th century new build had large, impressive bays built of massive oak timbers and connected to numbers 24 and 26. It was originally jettied to the street and had two large gables. The jetty was removed and the roof was changed to remove the gables, probably in the 18th century, and the building became a pub around 1859, extending backwards and joining up with number 9 Eastgate Street.

Number 26 Kings Head Street was built around 1480 as an impressive cross wing to the hall that once stood next door on the site of the Alma Inn today. The build was impressive because of the amount of high-quality oak employed and the use of brick infill rather than wattle and daub. The result would have been very striking in its day. There are suggestions that the building originally had a commercial use – probably as storage and possibly a showroom – with accommodation over.

An archaeological test pit excavated in the yard in 2019 revealed occupation from the 12th century with ceramic finds from France, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.

The earliest owner we can associate with the complex is William Randall (alias Harpour) who we know came before John and Ellen Lambard (alias Oliffe). Lambard was a Dutchman and married Ellen who was the cousin of William, the son without heir of the earlier William Randall.

John Lambard is probably the man that pulled down the old hall house and built the new house that became the Alma – with the whole complex configured as one grand mansion. We suspect that Lambard also improved access to the quay at the end of the street because the steps down to the water were for many years afterwards known as “Lambard's Steps”.

After Lambard we know that the Pett family – Peter Pett being the founder of the great shipbuilding dynasty – become the owners and then, possibly, the Chapmans and the Twitts.

We are certain that Thomas Twitt (Twytt) owned the property in the late 16th century. His daughter, Sarah, married Christopher Jones, the man that was to become master of the famous Mayflower and, in 1593 lived directly across the street.

The property remained in the Twytt family into the 17th century and spent most of the 18th century in the hands of the Spracklins. The Spracklins were fishermen and like many fishing families the men spent many months away at sea on their cod smacks – sailing up to Iceland to catch the best cod.

As pressure on space in the old town reached new heights the accommodation in Kings Head Street was divided up and extended to cram more people in and Lambard's former mansion was no exception with the property being partitioned and extended to merge with the houses in Eastgate Street – a configuration that remains today.

By the time the railway came in the 1850s King's Head Street was no longer the high status area it was in Tudor times and in 1859 the former heart of the mansion was converted to a beer house by founding landlord of the Alma Inn, William Hammond.

24, 25 and 26 Kings Head Street were surveyed and interpreted as part of the Harwich Architectural Survey Project which was funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

The full building report by David and Barbara Martin is available for download here.

A specialised report into surviving decorative fabric within the buildings by Andrea Kirkham is available for download here.