Richard Sparrow House
Tucked along a quiet street in Plymouth is the Richard Sparrow House, a wonderful reminder that some of the town’s history survives not in grand monuments but in the homes where ordinary families lived. Built around 1640, it is considered the oldest surviving house in Plymouth and one of the oldest wooden buildings in Massachusetts.
The house was built for Richard Sparrow, an English immigrant who arrived in Plymouth Colony with his family in the 1630s. Sparrow was a surveyor and played a role in laying out property boundaries and roads as the colony expanded. His house originally consisted of a much smaller structure than we see today, reflecting the relatively simple homes constructed by Plymouth’s early settlers. Later owners enlarged it as their needs and fortunes changed.
What makes the Sparrow House particularly interesting is its date. By 1640, the dramatic story of the Mayflower’s arrival was already twenty years in the past. Plymouth was becoming an established community. Families were building more permanent homes, cultivating land, raising children, conducting businesses, and creating the roads and property divisions that would shape the growing town. The Sparrow House allows us to move beyond the story of arrival and see what came next.
Today the house has found another life as the Sparrow House Pottery and gallery. Its weathered shingles, uneven lines, small windows, and low proportions still give it the unmistakable appearance of an early New England building, while artists and craftspeople continue to use the space.
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