The Corn Exchange is a commercial building in Exchange Square in

Beccles Beccles ( ) is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the East Suffolk District, East Suffolk district, in the county of Suffolk, England.OS Explorer Map OL40: The Broads: (1:25 000) : . The town is located along the A145 r ...

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

, England. The structure, which is now used as a branch of

Lloyds Bank Lloyds Bank plc is a major British retail banking, retail and commercial bank with a significant presence across England and Wales. It has traditionally been regarded one of the "Big Four (banking)#England and Wales, Big Four" clearing house ...

, is a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

History

The building was commissioned a local landowner, Robert Rede: the Redes were a prominent family in the town who had become the lords of the manor following dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century. He acquired the site in 1794 and arranged for a private dwelling to be erected there in 1810. The property was acquired by an actor and theatre manager, David Fischer, in 1819, as part of a project to establish a chain of theatres across

East Anglia East Anglia is an area of the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, with parts of Essex sometimes also included. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, ...

. Fisher converted the property into two residential units and a theatre which opened as the "New Play House" later that year. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage of seven bays facing onto Sheepgate. On the ground floor, there were two centrally-placed doorways, giving access to the two residential units, both flanked by

pilaster In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

s supporting

entablature An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...

s decorated with

triglyph Triglyph is an architectural term for the vertically channeled tablets of the Doric frieze in classical architecture, so called because of the angular channels in them. The rectangular recessed spaces between the triglyphs on a Doric frieze are ...

s and surmounted by

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative Moulding (decorative), moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, ar ...

s. There were three bays to the left and two bays to the right, all fenestrated on the ground floor by round headed windows with

architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; , also called an epistyle; ) is the lintel or beam, typically made of wood or stone, that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can also apply to all sides, including the vertical members, ...

s. The first floor was fenestrated by

sash window A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double glazing) of glass. History ...

s with

window sill A windowsill (also written window sill or window-sill, and less frequently in British English, cill) is the horizontal structure or surface at the bottom of a window. Window sills serve to structurally support and hold the window in place. The ...

s and cornices supported by

brackets A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. They come in four main pairs of shapes, as given in the box to the right, which also gives their n ...

, and the second floor was fenestrated by segmentally headed windows with architraves and keystones. At roof level, there was a

modillion A modillion is an ornate bracket, more horizontal in shape and less imposing than a corbel. They are often seen underneath a Cornice (architecture), cornice which helps to support them. Modillions are more elaborate than dentils (literally transl ...

ed cornice and a hipped roof. After Fisher died in 1832, the property continued to operate as a theatre until the building was auctioned in June 1844: it was acquired by Edward Lock of

Hoddesdon Hoddesdon () is a town in the Borough of Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, lying entirely within the London Metropolitan Area and Greater London Urban Area. The area is on the River Lea and the Lee Navigation along with the New River. Hoddesdon ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and one of the home counties. It borders Bedfordshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Greater London to the ...

who converted it into a

corn exchange A corn exchange is a building where merchants trade grains. The word "corn" in British English denotes all cereal grains, such as wheat and barley; in the United States these buildings were called grain exchanges. Such trade was common in towns ...

. He removed the theatre fittings and demolished the internal walls to create one large room for corn merchants to conduct their trade. The trading room was long and wide. The building was also used for public events: speakers included two members of parliament, Jasper More and

Clare Sewell Read Clare Sewell Read (6 November 1826 – 21 August 1905) was a British agriculturist and Conservative politician. Early life He was born in 1826 in Ketteringham, Norfolk, and was the eldest son of George Read of Barton Bendish Hall, and his wif ...

, who addressed a meeting of farmers, who were concerned about the

Malt tax A malt tax is a tax upon the making or sale of malted grain, which has been prepared using a process of steeping and drying to encourage germination and the conversion of its starch into sugars. Used in the production of beer and whisky for centuri ...

and the

Game law Game laws are statutes which regulate the right to pursue and hunt certain kinds of wild animals ( games or quarries) and fish (although the latter often comes under the jurisdiction of fisheries law). The scope of game laws can include the fo ...

s, in January 1867. The use of the building as a corn exchange declined significantly in the wake of the Great Depression of British Agriculture in the late 19th century. The property was occupied by Capital and Counties Bank in 1907, and then by

, after Capital and Counties Bank was acquired by Lloyds Bank in 1918.

References

{{reflist Commercial buildings completed in 1810 Beccles Grade II listed buildings in Suffolk

History

See also

References