25 and 25a Market Place

Summary

Former house, built in the early C17, converted to a house with a shop in the mid-C19, remodelled as two shops with living accommodation above in the second half of the C20.

Reasons for Designation

25 and 25a Market Place, a former early-C17 house which was converted to a house with a shop in the mid-C19 and then remodelled as two shops with living accommodation above in the second half of the C20, are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as an early-C17 former house which, with its later conversion to commercial use, contributes to the character of an architecturally varied historic streetscape.

Historic interest:

* for the contribution it makes to the evolution of the historic Market Place and the development of the town.

Group value:

* it has historic and functional group value with many other listed buildings ranged around Market Place.

History

Swaffham’s significance in the medieval period stemmed from its position on the crossroads of the main routes from London, Norwich and King’s Lynn. The first written record of a market in the town, which was established on a triangular-shaped area formed by the convergence of the aforementioned roads, was in 1215 when King John issued a royal writ to the Sherriff of Norfolk to abolish it should it ‘damage the market in Dunham’. It was never abolished and expanded rapidly. The Market Place was probably open to the church on its east side, but later C17 development closed this off, while the development of The Shambles in the middle in the late C18/early C19, further reduced the size of the open space. From the mid-C18, for a period of just over a hundred years, Swaffham became one of the most populous parishes in Norfolk and one of the most fashionable centres in the county, attracting many leading West Norfolk Families. A racecourse had been established by 1628, the Assembly Rooms were constructed in 1776-1778, subsequently extended and modernised in 1817, and George Walpole, the Third Earl of Orford (1730-1791), founded a coursing club in 1786. During this period of prosperity, much rebuilding took place around the Market Place and the overall character of the town is primarily of mid-late Georgian in date, although there is evidence for C16-C17 work behind many façades. Further rebuilding also took place after ‘The Great Fire of Swaffham’, which probably started in the vicinity of the Blue Boar Inn (now the White Hart) on the afternoon of 14 November 1775, when it was set ablaze by a spark from a nearby blacksmith’s workshop. Fire soon engulfed the densely packed houses and workshops behind the inn and along London Road, with 22 buildings being completely destroyed and a further two badly damaged. The town continued to expand in the C19 when its population increased from 2,200 in 1800 to 3,350 in 1845. It also became an important local administrative centre during this period and acquired several notable buildings, including a National School (1838), Shire Hall (1839) and Corn Hall (1858).

25 and 25a Market Place began life in the early C17 as a house, with Faden’s Town Plan of Swaffham (1797) showing an L-shaped building. The 1840 tithe apportionment records the building as a house, shop and yard, with Ellen Kidall as the owner and Walter Naunton, a baker and confectioner, the occupant. It is believed that the shop operated as a bakery until at least the outbreak of the Second World War. The ground floor was probably subdivided into two shop units with living accommodation above during the second half of the C20.

Details

Former house, built in the early C17, converted to a house with a shop in the mid-C19, remodelled as two shops with living accommodation above in the second half of the C20.

MATERIALS: of rendered and whitewashed flint and brick with a pantile roof and a brick stack.

PLAN: it is L-shaped on plan.

EXTERIOR: the building is of two storeys in two bays. At the centre of the ground floor, there is a half-glazed door with three panels to the lower two-thirds and three lights with Art Nouveau-style frosted glass above. It is flanked to the right-hand side by a late-C20 shop front and to the left-hand side by an early-C21 shop front, both with plate-glass display windows and glazed doors. On the first floor, there are two two-over-two horned sashes of C19 date. The gabled roof has a C20 internal gable-end stack to the east. At the rear is a two-storey cross wing with a doorway with label stops on the east side (now obscured by a mid-C20 addition), above which is an early-C19 four-light casement to the first floor. It also incorporates a reused datestone inscribed 1655.

INTERIOR: on the ground floor, the west room has chamfered bridging beams with tongue stops and run-out stops, while the east room has two wave-moulded bridging beams with run-out stops. The roof of the rear cross wing is comprised of upper crucks.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

460612

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, Wilson, B, The Buildings of England: Norfolk 2: North-West and South, (2002), pp679-680.
Swaffham History Group, , The Book of Swaffham: The Story of a Norfolk Market Town, (2021)

Other
Faden’s Town Plan of Swaffham (1797).
OS Map 25" (1884).

End of official list entry

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