BY CHARLES EVANS

Industry throve under the Tudors’ new order, but at the expense of the journeymen artisans and the cottage industries. Thomas Paycocke was one of the new capitalist factory owners, and in the Essex village of Coggeshall, facing the street, in around 1500 he built himself this beautiful house of oak and brick.

Almost every beam inside and out is enriched with carving. On the bres-summer-beam, above the male figure depicted above (flanking the entrance) can be descried two crowned imps shaking hands – symbolising Henry Tudor’s marriage with Elizabeth of York.