The house was first bought by a physician and apothecary, Mr. Joseph Cureall [pronounced koo-REEL] who sold potions made from wild herbs. He died in 1598 of the Ague [acute chills] and the property passed to the eldest of eight children - Jasper Cureall. Jasper won no favour with the local landed gentry because he was passionately anti-Royalist. His eccentricity was well known but no one could have foreseen that he would one day, quite suddenly, pack his bags and leave the village. As he was setting off, he was reported to have caught sight of Mr. and Mrs. Tickle who were arriving in Lavenham for the first time, by ox-cart.
The Tickles had little means and no accommodation awaiting them. They apparently intended to establish a commercial business in this thriving trading town. The legend goes that the physician's son, crazed by his father's well-fermented potions noticed the Tickle's arrival, and rushed over to greet them.. To their astonishment he bent down on one knee and presented them with the key to his house. "Mr. Cromwell", he said "take this house of mine that was my father's before me as a token of my allegiance for I have no more use of it. I am off to seek my fortune in foreign lands - I shall not return". Mounting his horse he bade them farewell and rode away, never to be seen again, leaving Mr. and Mrs. Tickle dumbfounded. Mr. Tickle was the very last in the line of the aristocratic "Tickle" family which had begun a long slow descent in to obscurity from the once great and powerful Duque "Le Ticoleur" of East Anglia dating back to the conquest of 1066. But the most curious aspect of Mr. Tickle was his quite startling resemblance to Oliver Cromwell.
This fact was soon to become widely known and no doubt helped in his establishment of a small and struggling seed merchants business nicknamed "Cromwells" by local tradesmen and farmers. However it was a strange quirk of fate that in 1643 the real Oliver Cromwell visited the town and was amazed to find himself addressed as Mr. Tickle. Cromwell enjoying his unexpected release from public attention seized this great opportunity and employed Mr. Tickle as his double and personal assistant. Within the week the Tickles had sold their business and left to join Oliver Cromwell to fight against Royalist forces. The town of Lavenham was in confusion; rumours spread like the Black Death far and wide about Mr. Tickle's strange appearances in the town, seemingly in more than one place at the same time and them his complete and unexplained disappearance; it was said that. Mr. and Mrs. Tickle were ghosts or doppelgangers.
In the meantime the Roundheads were winning the English civil war against the massive resources on the Cavaliers. This was partly achieved by Cromwell's apparent ability to be in two places at once. How significant this phenomenon was to the outcome of the English civil war no one knows but after the war was won the Tickles returned to Suffolk to the village of Bildeston They were promptly incarcerated by the Witch-finder General and subject to trial by ordeal to test whether or not they were in truth evil doppelgangers. They were put in stocks and insatiably tickled on the bare soles of their feet with a goose feather.