The Corn Hall is a commercial building in the Market Place,

Swaffham Swaffham () is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Breckland District and England, English county of Norfolk. It is situated east of King's Lynn and west of Norwich. The civil parish has an area of and in the U ...

Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...

, England. The structure, which is used as offices and as a coffee 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

In the first half of the 19th century, local corn merchants conducted their trade around the market cross, which was surmounted by a statue of the goddess, Ceres, and presented to the town by

George Walpole, 3rd Earl of Orford George Walpole, 3rd Earl of Orford (2 April 1730 – 5 December 1791), was a British administrator, politician, and peer. Life Lord Orford was the only child of the 2nd Earl of Orford and his wife Margaret Rolle, who was Baroness Clinton in ...

in 1783. In the mid-19th century, a group of local businessmen decided to form a private company, known as the "Swaffham Corn Exchange and Public Rooms Company", to finance and 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 ...

for the town. The building was designed by a local builder and architect, Mathias Goggs, in the

Italianate style The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style combined its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Ita ...

, built in red brick with

gault The Gault Formation is a geological formation of stiff blue clay deposited in a calm, fairly deep-water marine environment during the Lower Cretaceous Period (Upper and Middle Albian). It is well exposed in the coastal cliffs at Copt Point in Fo ...

brick dressings at a cost of £1,800 and was completed in 1858. The design involved symmetrical frontages of two bays at the north and south ends. In each bay there were tall recesses containing two-light

mullion A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid sup ...

casement window A casement window is a window that is attached to its frame by one or more hinges at the side. They are used singly or in pairs within a common frame, in which case they are hinged on the outside. Casement windows are often held open using a c ...

s with segmental heads on the ground floor and two light casement windows with round heads on the first floor. The recesses were 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 the gable ends, which contained circular panels with carvings of wheatsheaves and were surmounted by

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 ...

s and

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an upward extension of a wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/brea ...

s. The side elevations of four bays each were fenestrated in a similar style. The architectural historian,

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (195 ...

, was critical of the design which he described as "a depressing round arched structure of red and gault brick like a Methodist church." 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. Instead, it was let out for commercial use and accommodated, amongst others, a citadel hosted by

the Salvation Army The Salvation Army (TSA) is a Protestantism, Protestant Christian church and an international charitable organisation headquartered in London, England. It is aligned with the Wesleyan-Holiness movement. The organisation reports a worldwide m ...

. The building was also used for public meetings: in September 1871, it hosted a visit and speech by the future president of the

National Agricultural Labourers' Union The National Agricultural Labourers Union (NALU) was a trade union representing farm workers in Great Britain. Foundation The union's origins lay in a meeting at Wellesbourne in Warwickshire, held in February 1872. Joseph Arch, a well-known ...

Joseph Arch Joseph Arch (10 November 1826 – 12 February 1919) was an English trade unionist and politician, born in Barford, Warwickshire, who played a key role in unionising agricultural workers and in championing their welfare. Following their enfra ...

. During the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, the building provided accommodation for soldiers about to be deployed to the Western Front; soldiers from the

Essex Regiment The Essex Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1881 to 1958. The regiment served in many conflicts such as the Second Boer War and both World War I and World War II, serving with distinction in all three. ...

were billeted there in October 1914 and soldiers from the

Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry The Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry (SRY) was a British Yeomanry regiment. In 1967 it was amalgamated with other units to form the Royal Yeomanry (RY), a light cavalry regiment of the Army Reserve. Originally raised as the Nottinghamshire Yeomanry Cav ...

and

South Nottinghamshire Hussars The South Nottinghamshire Hussars is a unit of the British Army formed as volunteer cavalry in 1794. Converted to artillery in 1922, it presently forms part of 103 (Lancashire Artillery Volunteers) Regiment, Royal Artillery. History Formatio ...

stayed there in June 1915. It was used as a canteen operated by the

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It has nearly 90,000 staff, some 920,000 volunteers and 12,000 branches w ...

during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. After the war the building was used as offices. An extensive programme of refurbishment works was completed in 2010 to allow part of the building to be used as a

Costa Coffee Costa Limited, trading as Costa Coffee, is a coffeehouse chain with headquarters in Loudwater, Buckinghamshire, England, that operates in the United Kingdom and 37 other countries. Costa Coffee was founded in London in 1971 by Sergio Costa (co ...

outlet.

References

{{reflist Commercial buildings completed in 1858 Swaffham Grade II listed buildings in Norfolk

History

See also

References