31 Church Street is Samuel Pepys Wine Bar and Restaurant today but, like most old buildings in Harwich, it has been altered and reconfigured over the years to be used for different purposes, reflecting the changing needs of the population.

Behind the neat brick facade there is a 16th century timber frame building but that itself shows two phases of development and could represent alternate rebuilds. The best explanation is that, looking from the street, the left hand side of the building was a parlour cross wing and that a two storey hall, to the right, was built onto it. The house was jettied to the street and both sides may have had feature gables, as was the fashion in Harwich.

The modernisation that added a new facade in the late 18th century also added another storey with attic rooms and a new roof.

So the building started life as a high status residence but by 1770 it was a pub called the Rose & Crown but the pub appears to have been relatively short-lived and we can find no mention of it after 1817.

The building then seems to have reverted back to a house and in crowded Victorian Harwich it became home to multiple families.

Latterly the building has been a shop, fishmongers and finally a pub again.

We can’t associate any names with the 16th century build or any residents from the first two hundred years of the house’s existence. Church Street (originally called Middle Street) was unnumbered until the 1850s and even wills were not specific about where property actually was.

The first fix we get is in October 1770 when an auction is taking place at the Rose & Crown for a fishing smack. Mrs. Elizabeth Penning is the landlady.

We believe that the Rose & Crown came into the ownership of Charles Cox who, as well as being a pub owner, was the agent for the packet boats that sailed between Harwich and the Netherlands with the mail, light freight and passengers. Cox was in partnership with John Cobbold who had inherited a growing brewing empire from his father, Thomas, with Cobbold and Cox running the Harwich Brewery with a very healthy pub estate and ship victualling business.

The Harwich Brewery along with the Rose & Crown are inherited by the next generation of Cobbold and Cox respectively becoming part of the business shared by Thomas Cobbold and Anthony Cox.

When Thomas Cobbold retires and sells up in 1837 there is no sign of the Rose & Crown so we conclude that it reverted to a private house at some point in the preceding twenty years.

After Church Street gains numbers in the 1850s we pick up 31 Church Street on the 1861 census when it is host to Thomas and Sophia Wakefield and John and Anne Mixter and their young son George. It appears that there is additional room for which is unoccupied or the occupants are absent during the census.

In 1871 we have John and Emma Fenner, Sarah Riggs with her two children and aunt and Henry Scott his wife and two children living in three different parts of the house. John is a sailor, Henry is a Customs officer but Sarah and her aunt are living on annuities.

In the 1881 census there are fifteen people living in three parts of the house. William King is a railway foreman and lives with his wife, Emily, and the six children. William Beeston is a carpenter and lives with his wife, Amelia, and two daughters. Robert Fenner is a mariner and lives with his wife Mary and their young child.

In 1891 we find Walter Peachey living in the largest part of the house with his wife and five children plus two lodgers. In another three rooms William Ward is living with his wife, daughter and a lodger and in two rooms we find John Wicks his wife and son. A lodger, George Stewart, lives in one room. George is the local secretary for the National Seaman’s Union.

In 1901 the house is still divided into four and we find fifteen people living there. Samuel and Hannah Smith live in three rooms with their four sons. William and Alice Kearney live in two rooms. William and Sarah Gallant and their daughter live on two rooms. Susannah Smith lives in three rooms with her three children.

In 1911 Samuel and Hannah Smith are still resident with two sons still living with them in five rooms. All the Smith men are fishermen. In three rooms we find Emma Smith and her daughter and in one room we find Grace Hales and her daughter. Finally we have Royal Naval able seaman Thomas Simpson, his wife and son in one room.

The building at 31 Church Street was surveyed and interpreted as part of the Harwich Architectural Survey Project which was funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

An interpretation of the building by Brenda and Elphin Watkin is available for download here.