Assembly Rooms
1 Market Place
HOUSE: Now shop. c1770, front range c1780,
altered C20 and converted to shop. Grade II listed
In 1845 James Johnson, a woollen draper and tailor, owned and occupied these premises. He retired in 1857 after 50 years in the business.
His successor was his foreman, William Marriott, but the business was made bankrupt in 1861.
The Heyhoe family first arrived in Swaffham in the late 17th century and it was the grandson John James Heyhoe who began working life as a bricklayer and set up a Swaffham business as builder and stonemason from his home on London Street.
His son Robert was first a plumber and glazier and then continued the business on the death of his father in 1860, still living on London Street.
Ten years later he had added auctioneer and valuer to his portfolio and was also a landowner and farmer. He died in 1910 having taken his son Herbert Robert as a business partner in 1892.
It was Herbert who moved into Hillside on the edge of the Shambles, perhaps after his marriage to Edith Mantripp in 1898 until his death in 1939.
In the mid 1950s Lenwood Ltd. occupied the property trading as motor and agricultural engineers and between 1960 and 1980 it was the home of Radio Rentals.
Currys took over in 1980 and then gave way to Hughes Electrical from about 1983 until Hughes moved to London Street in 2015
When Photo Solutions moved from the north side to here in the early 2020s the building was split into two to accommodate the Digital Phone company.
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