Vintage Moments

HOUSE: Now shop. About 1780, converted to shop in
about 1820. Painted brick. Pantiled roof. Grade II listed.
It was a simple dwelling of two rooms, one up and one down, and the pitch of the roof line would indicate that this was a traditional Norfolk reed roofed building.

The first newspaper report of a postal service in Swaffham was of one run by the landlord of The Crown opposite the Shambles in 1804.

Later, in the 1830s until 1942 when he died, a service was run by William Pymar, postmaster, most probably based in the Shambles where his widow lived in 1841.

The 1845 map records that this house was the post office and that the postmaster was William Parsons, a gunsmith who owned a workshop in the Shambles. The house itself was owned by William Petchey.

Once the railway arrived in 1847 the coach trade disappeared almost overnight (Royal Mail coaches were withdrawn in 1846) and the speed and role of post offices increased rapidly.

Many thanks to Marion Hancock whose booklet “Post Offices in Swaffham”, A Swaffham History Group publication provided much of the information.

From 1919 into the 1940s Frederick E.Dickerson traded in fish, rabbit and game from here.

The next Postmaster in this building was Thomas Johnson, who also managed and then took over the Parson gunsmith workshop. He died in 1892 after 23 years as a postmaster.

It is probably at that time that Coe’s printing business opposite took over the role of post office until a dedicated building was built and opened in 1894 on Lynn Street.

In the 1950s/60s it became the hairdressers shop Elsa.
Premier Travel took it over between 1974 and 1981.
Jax Boutique was here by 1986.
Gill’s Boutique took over in the 1990s.
Since then, several shops have opened and closed, amongst them Vintage Moments which opened in 2020 but which is now closed.