26, 28 and 30, Market Place

Summary

A terrace of three townhouses, built in the late C18, possibly incorporating earlier fabric at the rear, partly converted to offices in the C19 and flats in the late C20.

Reasons for Designation

Reasons for Designation
26, 28 and 30 Market Place, a terrace of three townhouses, built in the late C18, possibly incorporating earlier fabric at the rear, partly converted to offices in the C19, with a partial conversion to flats in the late C20, are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* as a terrace of fashionable and high-status late C18 townhouses, that demonstrate good quality design executed in good materials;
* for the distinctive and well executed symmetrical façade, which is illustrative of the Georgian development of the town;
* for the survival of their late C18 plan forms along with a high proportion of neoclassical interior features, including an elegant staircase, cornicing, fireplaces, plasterwork and moulded window and door surrounds.

Historic interest:
* as a building which reflects the architectural tastes of the C18 as Swaffham became a fashionable local centre;
* 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 the Market Place, especially Oakleigh House (Grade II* listed) and numbers 18, 20, and 32 (all listed at Grade II), one of the best series of Georgian townhouses in Swaffham.

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 1776-8, subsequently extended and modernised in 1817, and George Walpole, the Third Earl of Orford (1730-91), 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 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).
A terrace of three town houses, two of which were known as Brandon House and Chatteris House, built in the late C18. During the C19 the buildings were internally remodelled to create office accommodation. One of the houses was also used as a veterinary surgery from at least the 1840s until the late C20. During the later C20 some of the upper floors were converted into flats while the original entrance to number 26, which was in a single-storey range adjoining the building's right-hand return, was demolished to facilitate the construction of a two-storey infill block, which also included a new entrance to number 26, in the gap between number 22 to the north.

Details

A terrace of three town houses, built in the late C18, possibly incorporating earlier fabric at the rear, partly converted to offices in the C19 and flats in the late C20.
MATERIALS: of red brick in Flemish bond with a roof of mixed red and black-glazed pantiles.
EXTERIOR: the external form of the three former houses reads as a single composition and is of three storeys in seven bays with platbands to the first and second floors and a dentil eaves cornice. The principal elevation is arranged 2:3:2, the centre three bays (number 28) advanced with two symmetrically placed entrances with four-panelled doors within stuccoed doorcases with minor incised decoration and plain entablatures with dentils and a hood. The ground and first floors have six-over-six unhorned sashes to each bay, the exception being the two ground-floor left-hand bays (number 30) which have C20 one-over-one horned sashes. The second floor has seven three-over three unhorned sashes. All the windows have painted timber sills and gauged skewback arches with painted keystones.
INTERIOR: the ground-floor front room to number 30 has moulded cornices and lugged window surrounds while the ground-floor room to number 26 has a modillion cornice. Number 28 has an open-string staircase has two turned balusters per tread, scrolled tread ends, baluster newels and ramped handrail.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

460613

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, Wilson, B, The Buildings of England: Norfolk 2: North-West and South, (2002), 682
Swaffham History Group, , The Book of Swaffham: The Story of a Norfolk Market Town, (2021)

End of official list entry

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