Longsons Estate Agency

House, now offices. c1770. Rural District Council Offices
mid 20c. Three storeys in 5-window range. First-floor and
second-floor windows replaced late C20.Grade II listed

This house was once known as Marcon House. It is possible that the original owners were John and Mary Macon who were established in Swaffham around 1750.

In 1839 the house was occupied by Jane Marcon, widow of John (grandson of the above). He died in 1833 and his widow continued to live here until the late 1840s.

The ornate ceiling above still surviving in an upstairs room dates from around 1740 and was probably a Marcon decoration.

A part of these extensive premises was occupied by the surgeon Caleb Rose in and beyond 1845.

A Fitzroy family also existed in its vicinity from around the 1840s. Newspaper reports infer that they was very engaged in fox hunting, hare coursing and similar, but the name is not found in census returns.

It is possible that the family lived in this house and changed its name to Fitzroy House after the Marcons left.

In 1894 and under the Marcon address Leonard Russell Goggs, a schoolmaster teaching a classical school at the house, was declared bankrupt.

The 1921 census is not clear on occupation of this house at that time. William Henry and Edward John Plowright have separate houses, but the order appears to put them next to Frederick Cooper, the chemist.

The house became the offices of the Swaffham Rural District Council in 1939. Previously it had met in the Shire Hall.

After the introduction of Breckland District Council in 1974 which replaced the Rural District Councils it was bought by A.C. Williamson of Necton and then sub-divided into units to let out to other companies and businesses, mostly, it would seem, to estate agents.

Picture-RDC officers ca 1965

Other Occupants:

John Dean, estate agents 1979
Revell, estate agents 1999
Longsons, estate agents 2019