Overton’s Tailors

Two tenants spent between them about 60 years in this property

The first recorded occupant of this house was Goss Wilkinson who kept a fishmonger dealership here between around 1841 and 1875. His wife Sophia carried on the business after his death in that year and died herself in 1889.

Goss became Fair steward in 1870 and in 1873 was appointed by the Rural Sanitary Authority as Inspector of Nuisances. This was a paid occupation and involved making sure the streets, drains and houses were kept in good hygienic order.

For example not: “allowing certain privies on the premises in their respective occupation to be in such a state as was considered to be in a state injurious to their own health and the neighbours”.

The owner had to remove and rebuild or repair the privies suitably and was fined £2.4s.

The brothers Thomas and Alfred Overton also spent 30 years here as cabinet makers from 1891. They probably took over the shop soon after 1881 as Thomas died in 1884. Alfred kept the business going, adding upholstery, doubtless with the help of his cabinet maker father who lived with him and his family.

Alfred was a campanologist and was probably the oldest – and maybe oldest serving – bellringer in Norfolk, ringing the church bells in Swaffham as a boy of 15 from 1863 until a year before his death in 1933.

The Reverend Keeling-Scott presenting Mr. Overton with a certificate for long service as a bell ringer. (The image on the left)

A shop called Coopers was here in 1921, according to a photograph of a funeral.

Mafeking Day celebrations in 1900.