Adrian Tinniswood is the author of fourteen books of social and architectural history. A Senior Research Fellow at the University of Buckingham and a Visiting Fellow in Heritage and History at Bath Spa University, he has worked for and with the National Trust at local, regional and national level for more than thirty years. In 2013 he was awarded an OBE for services to heritage. Samuel Pepys was born on 23 February 1633, the son of a London tailor. Pepys worked with the Navy Office, eventually rising to become Secretary of the Admiralty. He also became a JP, an MP and a Fellow of the Royal Society. In later life he was accused of being part of the anti-monarchist 'e~Popish Plot'e(tm), and was twice imprisoned for it. Upon his second release he retired to Clapham, then considered to be 'e~in the country'e(tm).

Samuel Pepys died on 26 May 1703. His diaries, which had been written in code, were bequeathed to Magdalen College, Cambridge, where they can still be viewed. John Evelyn , born 31 October 1620, was a scholar, gardener, architect and diarist. Born in Surrey, Evelyn later settled in Deptford, London and his diaries, like those of his friend and colleague Samuel Pepys, form a vivid account of life as a seventeenth-century courtier. Following the Great Fire, Evelyn submitted plans for the rebuilding of the city, and although these ultimately proved impossible to implement they brought him close to Christopher Wren and Charles II. He died in 1706.