Old Swan House

The Old Swan House is today named after the building’s relatively brief time as a pub of the same name but it is also known as 14 Kings Head Street.

Determining the origins of the building is difficult but the best interpretation is that it is formed of three sections of successive rebuilding and the form we see today is an adaptation of a medieval mansion that was itself adapted from a hall house that previously stood on the site.

The oldest part of the building appears to be the left hand section, as viewed from Kings Head Street, which was probably built as a cross wing to a medieval hall house in the late 15th Century.

The hall originally stood between two cross wings and was demolished at some point around 1600 to roughly shape the house as we see it today.

The rebuild that formed the defining structure of the house was an impressive affair as evidenced by the magnificent moulded plaster ceilings on the first floor and the carved bressumer beam to the frontage. It elevated the house to the standard of the most elegant street in Harwich – packed with the magnificent mansions of wealthy merchants.

High status houses in Harwich were a little bit different to the usual Essex close-studded, timber-framed residences because Harwich was a place of seafaring and commerce and the wealthiest families lived cheek-by-jowl with their prized cargoes – everything from cloth to preserved fish – nothing like the lifestyle of today’s elites.

Following its Elizabethan upgrade Swan House underwent several modifications with passageways being punched through the huge chimney stack and the northern cross wing – one providing access through the house to a new extension and the other to the yard at the rear. The house was also re-roofed.

Swan House first became a pub, known as the Bell & Dragon, in the first half of the 18th century. The pub was equipped with its own brewery of six barrels so could produce 1728 pints at a time. We can therefore speculate that the pub was victualling ships as well as producing ale and beer for its own consumption and would have been competing with the larger Harwich Brewery on the Quay.

Perhaps unsurprisingly the pub and brewery were eventually bought by Thomas Cobbold, the owner of the Harwich Brewery, and closed down. There is no mention of the Bell & Dragon after 1743.

After its first period as a public house it is likely Swan House returned to being a private residence until 1829 when changes in pub ownership in Harwich turned the house into the New Swan.

Now, the names are going to get very confusing but what is now called Old Swan House is really named after it’s period as a pub from 1829 to 1910. It was initially called the New Swan because it replaced a pub called the Swan at another site – probably Kings Quay Street – which had closed in 1828. It later was simply known as the Swan before closing its doors in 1910.

The building was listed Grade II* in 1951 and saved from dereliction in 1967 with an extensive renovation. It has since operated as a home, shop, art gallery and hotel.

An educated guess suggests that the Elizabethan doer-uppers of Old Swan House could be William and Elizabeth Kinge. This is based on their status within Harwich at the time and the letters W, E and K being carved into the middle of the impressive bressumer beam at the front on the property.

It is believed the property was inherited in 1630 by William Heard – the son of Tomasyn Kinge, daughter of William and Elizabeth, and John Heard – but we cannot trace William further.

Our next touchpoint is around 1736 when we believe Thomas Harvey, a Harwich fisherman, converted the house into the Bell & Dragon and started brewing there. In 1742 Harvey retires to a house in Church Street and lets the Bell & Dragon to James Crane who continues until the premises are bought and closed by Thomas Cobbold in 1743.

We don’t know what happened after 1743 but it is reasonable to expect that the property stayed within Cobbold family ownership – falling to John Cobbold and then another Thomas Cobbold. When the house once again becomes a public house in 1829 it is Sarah Leabon who is in charge but in 1837, when Thomas Cobbold sells up and retires, William Haxell is the landlord.

Old Swan House was surveyed and interpreted as part of the Harwich Architectural Survey Project which was funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

The building report by Brenda and Elphin Watkin is available for download here.

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