This
Grade II Listed building was probably built by Richard
Buckenham, a Tudor merchant specialising in beer and
fish. The house was left to his nephew, John Clarke
who, in his turn, generously decreed in his will that
the proceeds of its sale should be used for the benefit
of the town. The man who bought it In 1608,
was Thomas Warren, a merchant, Town Bailiff and Puritan,
whose extended family - and their business - occupied
the house until the 1700s. The family were Parliamentarians
during the Civil War and, as a consequence, debarred
from holding civic office after the Restoration.
The house seems to have escaped complete destruction
during the 1659 Southwold fire.
In 1705 the Warrens sold up to another well-known
brewer and Town Bailiff, John Thompson. John's descendants
were responsible for giving Buckenham House its Georgian
facelift and extensively upgrading the interior. The
Thompson dynasty ended in 1806. and eventually the
house was bought - with a large mortgage - by Henry
William Gooch, a financially stretched member of the
aristocratic family that owned, and still own, the
Benacre Estate. When it was sold by William's widow
in 1829, most of the proceeds were claimed by the
lenders.
The purchasers were the ecclesiastical charitable
fund, established under Royal patronage, known as
'Queen Anne's Bounty', and it became Southwold's Vicarage. The first vicar to take up residence there was the Revd H W Rous Birch, a nephew of the Earl of Stradbroke in whose patronage the living then was. This was Birch's second appointment as Vicar of Southwold; his first tenure was aborted some years previously when the Earl decided to give the living to his fourth son instead. But the latter died of TB and H W Rous Birch was reinstated. (The Revd Birch does not appear to have endeared himself to the townsfolk. More about tthis at Baggott's Mill, Field Stile Road.)
The building remained Southwold's vicarage until, a century later, it was sold to antiques dealer,
Eric Tooke in 1929.
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