29 Market Place

Summary

Former house, built in the early C17, documented as a public house in 1869, remodelled as a café in the mid-C20, converted to a fast-food restaurant in the late C20.

Reasons for Designation

29 Market Place is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as an early-C17 former house which, with its later alterations for 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 the 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- to 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).

29 Market Place was probably built in the early C17 as a house on the corner of Market Place and Ash Close. In 1869 it was documented as the Prince of Wales public house when the landlord Robert Pointer was refused a licence for keeping a disorderly house. Following the closure of the pub in 1932 the building was remodelled as a café. A photograph taken in 1962 (see Sources), when it was known as the Central Restaurant, shows that the right-hand bay to Market Place and the return to Ash Close both had 1930s-style shopfronts. During the late C20, the 1930s-style shopfronts and all the windows to the Market Place elevation were replaced. It is now (2024) used as a fast food restaurant.

Details

Former house, built in the early C17, documented as a public house in 1869, remodelled as a café in the mid-C20, converted to a fast-food restaurant in the late C20.

MATERIALS: of flint with brick dressings, the façade rendered and colour-washed, with a pantile roof and brick stack.

EXTERIOR: the principal elevation to Market Place is of two storeys in two wide bays. On the ground floor, the left-hand bay has a single-light window in a C19 surround while the right-hand bay and the right-hand return to Ash Close both have late-C20 shopfronts with plate glass display windows and a canted doorway with a half-glazed door to the corner. On the first floor, the Market Place elevation has late-C20 two-light casements with small-pane glazing to each bay, while the right-hand return, which has brick diapering in a diamond pattern, has an off-centre right two-over-two horned sash in a brick surround. Above is an internal gable-end stack.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

460615

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)

Websites
Photograph dated 1963 from the Picture Norfolk website, accessed 10 October 2023 from https://norfolk.spydus.co.uk/cgi-bin/spydus.exe/ENQ/WPAC/BIBENQ?SETLVL=&BRN=918183

End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.