14 Market Place

Summary

House built in the late C18 and converted into a shop in the mid-C19.

Reasons for Designation

14 Market Place, a house built in the late C18 and converted into a shop in the mid-C19, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* it retains historic external detailing, notably the ornate mid-C19 shopfront, which enhances the varied architectural character of the Market Place.

Historic interest:

* it contributes to the coherent commercial townscape that forms one of the most important historic public spaces in Swaffham, one that continues to reflect the historical development of the town.

Group value:

* for it strong functional and historic group value with, many other listed buildings on the Market Place, particularly with the adjoining Grade II listed 15 and 15a 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).

14 Market Place was built as a house in the late C18. On Faden’s Map of Swaffham (1797), it is shown in the middle of the Market Place, forming the south-east corner of a U-shaped range of buildings. The building on the 1840 Tithe Map is faint but appears to follow a similar configuration. In the mid-C19, it was converted into a shop, and from 1854 the Arnold family ran their business as grocers, tea dealers, wine merchants and family drapers.

On the first three editions of the Ordnance Survey (OS) maps of 1884, 1905 and 1928, the range of buildings which now forms 14, 15 and 15a Market Place is subdivided into two approximately equal units. The OS map of 1970 then shows the range subdivided into two unequal units: a small unit on the eastern end (number 14), and a longer unit on the western end (number 15). 14 Market Place mostly continued in use as a grocery shop until around 1970, after which it became the premises of Leonard Brittan, an independent family firm of Letting and Management Agents.

Details

House built in the late C18 and converted into a shop in the mid-C19.

MATERIALS: rendered and colour-washed brick, and pantile roof covering.

PLAN: the building is on a corner site and has a rectangular plan with a long narrow north-west wing.

EXTERIOR: the two-storey building is under a hipped roof with exposed rafter feet at the eaves. Both the south and east slopes have flat-roofed, two-light dormer windows of C20 date, wholly within the roof space. A mid-C19 plate-glass shop front wraps around the corner, formerly with an entrance in the canted corner consisting of a pair of columns with foliated capitals supporting a nodding arch with hollow mouldings and fleuron decoration. The door has since been replaced with a window. A cast iron corner bracket for a shop sign hangs above the former entrance. The first floor on both the south and east front is lit by a two-over-two pane horned sash window, the east window retaining an external blind box. Below the window on the south front is a doorway with glazed upper panels, inserted in the C20. It is positioned to the left of the shop front and is used as the main shop entry.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

460602

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

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

Other
Unpublished research – Swaffham Cultural Consortium and Swaffham History Group

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.

Print the official list entry