Montpelier House and Western House

We don’t know but possibly:- In 18th century England towns which were known to be particularly healthy or well situated were frequently called Montpelier after the French town which, because of its elevation, suffered less from malaria. The name was often used by writers as meaning “the most favoured spot.”

The name implied class as in a fashionable or sought after area. Fanny Nelson, who at one time lived in a house called Montpelier on the island of Nevis in the Caribbean, may have stayed here but it is unlikely that the house was named after her.

• ca. 1750. Now divided into 2.
• Single-storey extension to north fitted with bowed plate-glass
  display window.
• Grade II listed building

The East Anglia Electricity Company moved here from The Shambles in about 1979 and The Green Parrot, a health and food shop, replaced it on the ground floor in the 1980s. On the first floor is Malika Healing.

The audio has been taken from an audio guide to Swaffham. Dates and participants unknown.

William Pott Pillans was a solicitor at the house from around 1840 to his death in 1854. The building also served as his office. His widow, Martha, continued to live there until the 1860s when Richard Oakes, a surveyor, bought the house.

He died in 1896 and the northern half (Montpelier House) was bought in 1907 by the solicitor Robert Sewell who occupied it probably until his death in 1920. By 1921 the owner of the now divided house was Ann Wells, a widow, with her daughter Ethel who was living there in 1939.

Many people ask when it was split into two dwellings. By following the census returns between 1841 and 1911 it would appear that it was divided during the time when the whole house was the home of John and Sarah Hook.

Born in Swaffham, his family ran a baker’s shop on Lynn Street but when the family left Swaffham for London he stayed behind to manage the business, although very young.

By then a baker and merchant, he bought Montpelier House around the 1870s, and the first evidence of a split was in the census of 1901, a year after his death, when it was the home of Sarah Hook and George Bunting.

At his property sale in 1907 both Montpelier and Western House were sold separately, the one to Robert Sewell and the other to George Bunting.