Ancient High House

The Ancient High House is an Elizabethan town house located on the main street in Stafford. The house was constructed in 1595 by the Dorrington family, from local oak, which anecdotally came from the nearby Doxey Wood, and is the largest timber framed town house in England.

Many of the original timbers bear carpenter's marks indicating that the frame was pre-assembled on the ground and the joints numbered to aid the on-site construction. Some timbers have additional joint housings cut into them, which would suggest that they have been reused from an even earlier structure. It was not unheard of for a building to be dismantled and rebuilt at a different location - hence the expression to 'up-sticks', which means to move house.