The Town Barber

The first occupant that can reasonably be evidenced is the boot and shoemaker Edward Marsh on the 1851 and 1861 censuses. Two other contenders – or perhaps sharing – in 1851 are Eliza Clements, a baker, and Henry Laugher, a Wesleyan minister, but they may possibly have lived in part of the bank complex next door or at the rear.

From 1861 The house may have housed bank clerks working at the Gurney bank next door.

Possible occupants:
John W.Page in 1871 and 1881; Walter Hayden in 1891; John Dennis in 1901, 1911 and possibly 1921.

Robert Denton Lewis – a baker’s assistant and his wife Beatrice – caretaker of a fruit shop in 1939.

It was pulled down and rebuilt in brick in 1946 with its neighbour next door but we lose sight of its occupants until the appearance of Ben Ripper there as the town barber in 1952.

Ben Ripper (1914-2009), who was cousin to Howard Carter, was not only a barber for over 50 years in the town but also one of prime movers behind the museum; a collector of local items from the Stone Age onwards; a local history author and artist – he wrote Ribbons from a Pedlar’s Pack which he illustrated himself; a founder member of Swaffham Players; and a long serving Urban District Councillor.

It was he who realised the importance of the finds when the Paddocks estate was being built and called in the experts to verify a pagan Saxon cemetery.