Hanover House

Details

CROMER

892/0/10018 HIGH STREET 08-OCT-03 Hanover House

GV II

Also Known As: Shipden House, HIGH STREET Commercial premises and flats, formerly house or houses. c.1500 origins, mainly C18/C19 with C20 alterations. Red brick with stone dressings and C20 tile roof with coped gables with kneelers and truncated end stacks. Some flint and brick to the rear which is partly rendered and colourwashed. 3 storeys and cellar with 2 storeys to rear range. Main range facing High Street with wings extending to rear and rear range, possibly originally hall and crosswing, the whole forming a courtyard plan with the space flat-roofed over at first floor level. Main front to High Street is a 3-window range at first floor and of possibly late C18 brickwork. However it has a late C20 character to the ground floor and a mid C19 character to the upper floors with two large sashed bays with curved corners included curved glass. These are either side a 2/2 sash under a gauged brick flat arch with slightly projecting keystone. Second floor has three similar but lower sashes with similar flat arches. Cornice above of carved stone brackets and moulded brick with kneelers to ends which rise above stone quoins. Ground floor has two C20 shop fronts and a central door leading to stairs to upper floors. Gable ends adjoin separate adjacent buildings but rear facing a car park has a projecting gable and lean-to to left and centre and a set-back main range to right with the higher rear wings of the front range visible to rear. The facing gable has 2 6/6 unhorned sashes at first floor over a door and 2 small C20 windows. Central doorway has curved overlight, C20 door and flat hood on heavy moulded brackets. A mullion and transom window is on the lean-to inner return and a 6/6 sash on the main range first floor with small lean-tos beneath. Flint walling with red brick dressings. The gable end of this range ends before the boundary and in the gap can be seen the end of a front range rear wing where at first floor there is a round-arched C19 window with stained and painted glass margin lights. INTERIOR. Ground floor has a mainly late C20 character but in the rear of the left hand side are a blocked large fireplace and some probably C19 leaded light windows, now internal. The cellar, reached from this section down a sizeable walkway/stair, has chamfered bridging beams and wooden joists, bricks pillars and many elements of whitewashed rough stone walling. On the ground floor right hand side were discovered in 1981 elements of a ceiling of c.1500. This is now again covered but photos show very fine moulded joists and beams with moulded wall plates. On the first floor at the front are 2 large reception rooms with elaborate C19 ornamental frames to the bay windows, high skirting boards and moulded plaster cornices and ceiling roses. A C19 stair to the right from first floor to second has heavy turned newels and a balustrade with turned balusters. Behind this is a room with a C18 fireplace and wall cupboards with raised and fielded panel doors. There are also C18 2-panel doors leading to the rear room facing the car park and the windows here have window seats with raised and fielded panelling. Facing the internal yard are early/mid C19 sash windows including 2 with unusual slight bows. HISTORY. This complex appears seen from the rear in a probably early C18 view of Cromer now at Felbrigg Hall. The rear wing then and until the C19 had a characteristic Dutch gable. In 1935, during building works, an old bath was discovered under the floorboards in the basement. It was surrounded by hand-made red bricks. Red clay was spread on a layer of straw then cut to size, marks of the cutter showed on the edges. A few blue and white tiles were found, decorated with pictures of a Dutch Mill; these were about 150/200 years old. There was a bath outlet with a large wooden plug. At the corner of the room, an old well was found, 35 foot deep, built of large beach flints with the top covered with brickwork. The bath drained into the well. In 1981, as well as the ceiling, part of an original gable end wall was found and photographed from the stairway of Shipden House. This showed a dressed round flint East/West outside wall with moulded brick window head. This courtyard plan complex which dates from the late medieval period appears to have early stonework in the cellar and has remains of a fine late medieval ceiling surviving to the ground floor, as well as C18 features and good mid C19 decorative elements. It overlooks the church and churchyard (q.v.) and forms part of a significant group of historic buildings in the centre of Cromer. It is an ensemble with many features of interest and further research and excavation may well reveal more. Note. This complex is shown on the OS map as Hanover House but seems sometimes to be known as Shipden House. This latter name appears more correctly to apply to the present Budgens Supermarket to the north. REFERENCE. Cromer Preservation Soc. Newsletter, Autumn 2002. Cromer Museum, photos and notes by M.Warren.

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