34 and 34A Market Place

Summary

Former house with shop, built in the second half of the C18. In the 1980s the ground floor was subdivided to create two retail units with living accommodation above.

Reasons for Designation

34 and 34A Market Place, built as a house and shop in the second half of the C18, with the ground floor subdivided in the 1980s to create two retail units, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* for its symmetrical composition and well-executed design, which achieves a strong street presence.

Historic interest:

* as a former showroom belonging to the Plowright family, an old Swaffham family who, for at least two centuries, ran a prominent ironmongers and engineering works in the town;
* 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, particularly the adjoining Grade II-listed Plowright Place, which was the home of the Plowright family's ironworks from 1870 until it closed in the 1970s.

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).

The history of 34 and 34A Market Place has a long association with the Plowright family, whose presence in Swaffham can be traced back to 1457. Although business records for the family's agricultural engineering business, one of the largest and best-known in East Anglia, were kept from 1775 to 1939, its exact origins are unknown. It is possible that 34 Market Place was acquired as a new build by George Plowright (1742-1824) during the second half of the C18 as both a family home and as a shop for his family's ironmongery business. On his death in 1824, the business and family home was inherited by his son, William Plowright (1774-1846), who traded as an ironmonger and iron founder under the name of Plowright and Son. After William's death in 1846, the estate passed to his son, Henry Plowright (1817-1883). The 1851 census records Henry living at 34 Market Place with his wife, Eleanor and their two sons along with an assistant, two apprentices and two servants. In 1870, Henry built an extensive engineering works (separately listed at Grade II), now known as Plowright Place, on an adjoining site immediately to the south of the family home. Following Henry's death in 1883, the business and family home were bequeathed to his son, William Henry Plowright (1848-1927), who continued to live above the shop premises with his wife, Sophia, along with their son, Robert William, and two daughters, Eleanor and Margaret. Although Robert William inherited the family business on his father's death in 1927, he never married, and with no heir, sold the business in 1940 to Eric Wigg whose family ran a similar business in nearby Beccles. The Wigg family kept the Plowright name until the late 1970s when the company closed. In the 1980s the building's ground floor was remodelled to form two retail units.

Details

Former house with shop, built in the second half of the C18. In the 1980s the ground floor was subdivided to create two retail units with living accommodation above.

MATERIALS: of red brick in Flemish bond with a brick stack and a roof of black-glazed pantiles.

EXTERIOR: the building is of three storeys in five bays. Its ground floor has two 1980s shopfronts with plate glass doors and windows. On the first floor, there are five two-over-two unhorned sashes with rendered and painted gauged skewback arches. The second floor has five similar but shallower sashes. Above is a dentilled eaves cornice. The roof is gabled and has a rear ridge stack along with internal gable-end stacks to the north and south, the latter rebuilt in the C20.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

460619

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)
Ferguson, G, The Plowright Story: The History of the Plowright Metal-working Family of Swaffham and King's Lynn, (2019)

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