17 Fleet Street, EC4Y 1AA

Phone:

020-7936 2710

Opening times:

Mon–Sat 11:00–14:00

How to get there:

Tube: Blackfriars/Temple/Chancery Lane

Entry fee:

Free

A fine timbered house built in 1610 just inside the Temple Bar which marks the boundary of the City of London, 17 Fleet Street is one of the very few Jacobean houses in the City to have survived the Great Fire of 1666, which died out near St Dunstan’s, Fetter Lane, nearby. When the house was newly built, a room on the first floor was used by Henry, Prince of Wales, the son of King James I, until his early death from typhoid at the age of eighteen in 1612. For the last two years of his life, Henry is believed to have held meetings here to administer the Duchy of Cornwall. The Jacobean plasterwork ceiling is very well preserved, as is one oak-panelled wall, divided into three parts by carved strips with a patterned frieze above. Oak chairs and an elaborately carved refectory table are also of the period, but with no known connection to the room, which now also houses a small display on the indefatigable diarist Samuel Pepys, one of the great chroniclers of the Fire. A letter signed by him can be seen, alongside pictures and information panels on Pepys’ life and times and his work as a naval administrator.