Dark Jacobean oak panelling rises from bare flagstone floors to a heavy-beamed ceiling in this striking real-photograph view of the Historical Oak Room at the Mint House, Pevensey — one of the finest surviving examples of early 17th-century decorative woodwork in East Sussex. Every panel is carved with lozenge and strapwork motifs; the fireplace surround is especially elaborate, its overmantel dense with low-relief foliage and heraldic devices. Fire-dogs still stand in the grate, suggesting the room remained in domestic use when this long-exposure photograph was taken in the Edwardian era. The Mint House itself dates to the 14th century and takes its name from a reputed connection to a medieval royal mint; by the early 1900s it had become a popular tourist attraction and postcard subject in the ancient walled town of Pevensey, gateway to the Norman Conquest landscape of the Sussex coast.