9 Market Place

Summary

House with shop, built in the early C19, with later alterations.

Reasons for Designation

9 Market Place, Swaffham, an early-C19 house and shop, with later alterations, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as a former early-C19 house and shop which 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- 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).

9 Market Place was probably built in the early C19 as a house with a shop. By 1845 the building was occupied by Charlotte Harvey, who ran the shop as a fancy repository. From then, it continued as a retail store for different industries including electrical goods and clothing.

Details

House with shop, built in the early C19, with later alterations.

MATERIALS: of red brick in Flemish bond, the front elevation painted, with a pantile roof and brick stack.

PLAN: of a double-pile plan.

EXTERIOR: the principal elevation is of two storeys plus dormer attic in two bays. The ground floor has a late-C20 shopfront with a central plate-glass door flanked on each side by plate-glass display windows, over which is an early-C21 fascia. On the first floor, there are two two-over-two horned sashes with gauged brick heads. At the centre of the attic, there is a segmental-headed dormer with a three-over-three unhorned sash. An internal gable-end stack at the north end was rebuilt in the C20.

To the right-hand return, the north gable end of the front range has a one-over-one sash on the ground floor, which is rendered, while the unrendered first floor has a six-over-six sash. The gabled rear range has a blocked window opening to the ground floor, which is part rendered and part painted, and a C20 metal-framed casement to the first floor; the different patina in the brickwork to the gable head and its laying in stretcher bond indicates that it has been rebuilt, probably in the C20.

INTERIOR: the ground floor has been opened out into a single retail space with applied C20 timberwork.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

460598

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)

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