The Corn Exchange is a commercial building in the Market Place in

Hadleigh, Suffolk Hadleigh () is an ancient market town and civil parish in the Babergh district of Suffolk, England. The town is situated next to the River Brett, between the larger towns of Sudbury and Ipswich. It had a population of 8,253 at the 2011 censu ...

, England. The structure, which currently accommodates a small business centre, 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 town has a long history of weekly markets dating back to the grant of a market charter by King Henry III on 30 May 1252. In the early 19th century, the market

feoffee Under the feudal system in England, a feoffee () is a trustee who holds a fief (or "fee"), that is to say an estate in land, for the use of a beneficial owner. The term is more fully stated as a feoffee to uses of the beneficial owner. The use ...

s launched an initiative to commission a purpose-built

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 ...

which would be financed by

public subscription Subscription refers to the process of investors signing up and committing to invest in a financial instrument, before the actual closing of the purchase. The term comes from the Latin word ''subscribere''. Historical Praenumeration An early form ...

and would protect market traders from inclement weather. The site the feoffees selected was already in their ownership and, being just to the south of St Mary's Church, was known as the Church Croft. It was designed in the

neoclassical style Neoclassicism, also spelled Neo-classicism, emerged as a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassici ...

, built in brown brick and was officially opened on 22 November 1813. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage of seven bays facing onto the Market Place. The central section of three bays featured a

tetrastyle A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cultu ...

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cu ...

formed by four

Doric order The Doric order is one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of t ...

columns supporting an

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 ...

, which was 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 a

pediment Pediments are a form of gable in classical architecture, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the cornice (an elaborated lintel), or entablature if supported by columns.Summerson, 130 In an ...

, containing a

roundel A roundel is a circular disc used as a symbol. The term is used in heraldry, but also commonly used to refer to a type of national insignia used on military aircraft, generally circular in shape and usually comprising concentric rings of differ ...

in the tympanum. The bays flanking the portico were fenestrated by

Diocletian window Diocletian windows, also called thermal windows, are large semicircular windows characteristic of the enormous public baths (''thermae'') of Ancient Rome. They have been revived on a limited basis by some neo-classical architecture, classical rev ...

s surmounted by panels containing carvings of flowers and leaves, while the outer bays were blind but the brickwork was also surmounted by similarly decorated panels. 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 ...

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 ...

. There was originally an open rectangular courtyard but this was subsequently covered by a hipped roof and a rectangular glass

dome A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...

. 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. An extensive programme of restoration works was completed in 1895. The building continued to be owned by the Hadleigh Market Feoffment Charity until being sold in the 1970s. It was subsequently acquired by

Suffolk County Council Suffolk County Council is the upper-tier Local government in England, local authority for the county of Suffolk, England. It is run by 75 elected county councillors representing 63 divisions. It is a member of the East of England Local Governme ...

and operated as the Brett River Children's Centre until 2014. In the absence of alternative uses, the county council marketed the building for sale in April 2015. The building was subsequently converted into a small business centre with the whole of the ground floor being let to Robert Chapman from Boxford and Ben Stickels from Kersey, for use as the offices of a newly formed firm of estate agents, Chapman Stickels, in October 2019. The firm commissioned a significant programme of refurbishment works to the ground floor which involved removing 1980s furnishings, replacing doors and re-painting. Other tenants moved into smaller units on the mezzanine floor.

References

{{reflist Commercial buildings completed in 1813 Hadleigh, Suffolk Grade II listed buildings in Suffolk Hadleigh

History

See also

References