4 Market Place

Summary

House built around 1780 and converted to a shop around 1820.

Reasons for Designation

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

Architectural interest:

* as an historic commercial building, which contributes strongly to the architectural character and diversity of Swaffham’s historic Market Place;
* for the architectural quality of this compact commercial building, which retains an early-C19 bowed display window.

Historic interest:

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

Group value:

* for its proximity to and strong visual relationship with other listed buildings on 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).

4 Market Place was built as a house around 1780 and is depicted on Faden’s Plan of the Town of Swaffham of 1797. The building was converted to a shop around 1820 and is recorded as a ‘house and shop’ in the Tithe Apportionment and map of 1840. It operated as the town’s post office from the mid-C19 until a new post office was built on Lynn Street in 1894.

Details

House built around 1780 and converted to a shop around 1820.

MATERIALS: the roof has a pantile covering, and the walls are of painted brick.

PLAN: it is roughly square on plan.

EXTERIOR: 4 Market Place is two storeys high with a single window range and faces north to Lynn Street. Its pitched roof has a pantile covering and is gabled to the east and west. The walls are constructed of red brick and painted, with a dentil eaves course, and an early C19 continuous platband over the ground floor. The ground floor has a late-C20 half-glazed door to the left, and to the right is a bowed early-C19 shop display window of 24 panes, with a moulded and dentilled cornice over. The first floor has a single three-over-six sash window without horns in a flush frame. The west gable end has two windows of different sizes on the ground floor, both three-over-six sash windows without horns; the right window was introduced in the C20. The first floor has a single six-pane window. The rear elevation has a C20 lean-to outshut.

INTERIOR: it is understood that the first-floor north wall retains a painted mural of a landscape, thought to depict potteries and a castle in the background, which was possibly executed in the late C18 or early C19.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

460594

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, Wilson, B, The Buildings of England: Norfolk 2: North-West and South, (2002), p681
Swaffham History Group, , The Book of Swaffham: The Story of a Norfolk Market Town, (2021)

Websites
Norfolk Heritage Explorer, 'No.4 Market Place, NHER 46447', accessed 20 February 2024 from https://www.heritage.norfolk.gov.uk/record-details?MNF51483

Other
Unpublished research – Swaffham Cultural Consortium and Swaffham History Group

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