10 Market Place

Summary

Former townhouse, built in the early C19, converted to a shop and extended to the rear in the later C19, with use as an emigration office in the early C20, a motorcycle dealership and repair workshop in mid-C20, an electrical goods retailer in the late C20 and a building society in the early C21.

Reasons for Designation

10 Market Place, Swaffham, a former townhouse built in the early C19, with later C19, C20 and early C21 alterations for commercial use, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as a former early-C19 townhouse which, with its later conversion to 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 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 (1730-1991), 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).

10 Market Place was probably built in the early C19 as a three-storey town house. During the early C20, it was used as Swaffham Urban District Council's emigration office. After the Second World War, it was occupied by Henry Edward Tuck, who ran a motorcycle dealership and repair workshop from the premises. By the 1970s the ground floor was occupied by an electrical goods retailer, and in the 2000s it became a building society.

Details

Former townhouse, built in the early C19, converted to a shop and extended to the rear in the later C19, with use as an emigration office in the early C20, a motorcycle dealership and repair workshop in mid-C20, an electrical goods retailer in the late C20 and a building society in the early C21.

MATERIALS: of red brick, rendered, colour-washed and scored to imitate ashlar, with a roof of mixed red and black-glazed pantiles and brick stacks.

PLAN: it is rectangular-on-plan, aligned roughly north to south, with a later C19 additions at the rear.

EXTERIOR: the building is of three storeys in three bays. Its ground floor has a late-C20 timber shopfront with a plate-glass entrance door, recessed at the centre, flanked on each side by canted plate-glass display windows divided by colonnette mullions, over which is a deep fascia. On the first floor, there is a blind central window flanked on each side by six-over-six horned sashes; the right-hand return also has an identical sash window. The second floor also has a blind central window flanked by shallower, three-over-three horned sashes. The gabled roof has internal gable-end stacks to the north and south, both rebuilt in the late C20.

INTERIOR: the ground floor has been opened out to create a single internal space for use as a commercial office.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

460599

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, Wilson, B, The Buildings of England: Norfolk 2: North-West and South, (2002), 679-680
Swaffham History Group, , The Book of Swaffham: The Story of a Norfolk Market Town, (2021)

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.